


The Zootopian Dream

by Heat3000



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Government Conspiracy, Interspecies Romance, Mystery, Political Thriller, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 85,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6328471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heat3000/pseuds/Heat3000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after the Night Howler Incident, the city of Zootopia is in decline. Officers Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps become snarled in controversy when a minor, open-and-shut crime sets in motion a chain of events far larger than anyone in the city can imagine. Now, the duo is racing to piece together who is committing these crimes, what's their motive, and can they be stopped before they become the next targets?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The Zootopian Dream

 

**Prologue**

 

Two years ago, officers Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde saved the city of Zootopia from the Night Crawler Incident – an insidious conspiracy that sought to sow hatred and fear among the city's residents and tear it apart from the inside to install a new, discriminatory species order. Since then, the city has recovered, in spirit if not in fact, because reality is a harsh mistress, and gives and takes on whims decided not by animals, but by fate; and as fate would have it, Zootopia was not freed from the shadow of the Night Stalker Incident when ZPD's heroic duo brought it to the light of day.

 

The few months after the incident were fraught with peril for the city: Mayor Lionheart had been acquitted of all charges and had been restored to office, but hiding the feral animals from the public for so long and suppressing ZPD's search for them had left its mark. The fact that his deputy mayor was the real culprit behind the disappearances – and its strains on inter-species relations in the city – only made matters worse. Mayor Lionheart lost his reelection campaign in a landslide that year, alongside every council-member who supported him. The new mayor – a cat by the name of Laura Felis – rode a wave of revolution into office. She would open up the city government and make it clear that the old way of doing business was no longer acceptable. Small, prey species would be given better opportunities to advance in civil society and business, and relations with “Outer Boroughs” such as Bunnyburrow, would be improved as the city invested in bringing businesses and residents from these far-flung locations closer to Zootopia's center of power.

 

Of course, the powers that be have a way of twisting expectations. Within her first month in office, Mayor Felis's new transparency initiative had uncovered that large swaths of the city government were corrupt. The entire Tundratown Chamber of Commerce had been jailed over ties to Mr. Big, the Zootopian Transit Authority discovered that several of its employees were illegally using trains to smuggle counterfeit goods and movies into the city, and the Mammal Inclusion Project – one of Mayor Lionheart's better-thought-out programs – was revealed to have been a little too successful: the MetroTrail expansion was to be completed by a construction company entirely staffed by mice, almost tripling the cost.

 

Amid the economic and political chaos, the citizens of the city could rely on, above all else, its bedrock – the police department. The first rabbit officer and first fox officer not only have public appeal, but the congeniality of those who wanted to make a difference in the world; and Chief Bogo's steady leadership at the helm ensured that, while the rest of the city sank into depression, the budget cuts to the police force were modest, at best. Officers Hopps and Wilde had to see a few of their friends reassigned to other precincts to cover extra overtime, and had less recruits coming through training, but they still had each other, ever prepared to take on the next big threat to the public welfare.

 

Unfortunately, being the public face of the police department comes with its sacrifices, alongside its rewards. While they stayed partnered together at headquarters – earning themselves a solitary office to themselves overlooking Civic Center – their popularity and presence made it impossible to conduct actual police work. For the intrepid duo, facing danger and their lives to bring down Assistant Mayor Bellweather, they were confined to the relative safety of Savannah Square, conducting photo ops, and patrolling areas where the media could always sees them.

 

Through it all, the ZPD was the city's bedrock: always ready, always there; and as the city found itself under a new threat – one that had the potential to reach far beyond Zootopia itself – Officers Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps found themselves to be the only ones who could stop it.

 

Of course, it never starts off that way.

 


	2. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please

**Chapter I: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please**

 

The sound of jackhammers and pile-drivers woke her, as they had for the past three months, ever since work started on a new extension to the MetroTrail through her neighborhood. Judy groaned and turned over in bed, hugging the blanket and grasping for her phone. There were four more minutes until her alarm was supposed to sound. She appreciated the workers' punctuality and tendency to wake her up around her scheduled time, but she preferred to wake up on her own terms and to the sound of her chirpy alarm. Her neighbors weren't too pleased about the construction either, trading insults with the workers below in a fashion she was sure should have been grounds for citation for domestic disturbance, but with ZPD understaffed and underfunded, she knew that unless she took her personal time to cite them, Central Precinct would never actually send her to keep the peace.

 

She struggled out of bed and got ready just in time to make the bus to Savanna Civic Center, her phone in one hand and vegetable shake in another, getting off to join the crowd of suits and blues making their way around the city's center of government. A quick look around easily told her that times were getting harder: the plethora of food trucks around city hall had been reduced to a few vegetable stands and an insect grill that the mayor frequented; the main intersections were well-lit, but farther down on the side streets, even downtown was covered in darkness. The streetlamps, she realized, would be turned on slightly before rush hour traffic hit the plaza, to give the illusion that happy times were still here, but otherwise, the early risers and the high-achievers coming into work just as the black sky started to brighten had to deal with the uncomfortable realization that they were managing a great city's decline.

 

As Judy arrived at headquarters for her daily workout before the day's briefing, she noticed that Clawhauser was already at his desk, his head periodically dropping to the side as he struggled to stay awake.

 

“Hey Clawhauser! Good morning!” She chimed, skipping up to his desk. “Isn't it a little early for you to be in?” she said. Checking her phone, it was only a quarter past six; usually Clawhauser didn't get in until right before the morning briefings started two hours from now.

 

“Budget cuts,” he managed to murmur, keeping his head stable by propping it up with both hands. “They got rid of third shift and transferred Howl to traffic duty. I've got four extra hours on my shift now!” He tried to whine, but the words came out as only a high-pitched mumble.

 

“Aw, don't look so down, Clawhauser. Think of it as more time to serve the public!” she said, smiling and standing up straight, trying to cheer him up. He looked and her and sighed, sitting up in his chair, trying to imitate her expression. He lasted three seconds before his head hit the desk.

 

“I wouldn't be so down if Donkey Donuts didn't open until seven.” he said, resting his head on his arms. “How are you keeping, Judy? You're not going to bust in here and throw criminals at my feet through donuts again, are you? I appreciate the gesture but not this early.”

 

“Oh, no! Last week the chief had me and Nick patrolling around civic center and the skyway entrances. They're the most visible areas of the city, so I guess he wants to keep showing us off , but they're also the safest. It's kind of boring, actually,” she said, leaning on the desk.

 

“Yeah, well, at least the Skyway has donut shops open this early. I'd take that. How's Nick doing, anyway? I haven't seen him in forever!” he said, lazily, beating back sleep.

 

“Wait around for a minute and he'll catch up. He started working out with me in the morning before everyone gets here. Told him if he can keep up with me on the track then he could choose the radio stations in the car,” she said, turning around to face the door. Sure enough, as she said that, she red ears bobbing up and down on their way up the steps, before she made out Nick's figure coming through the entrance. “Speak of the devil!”

 

“And he shall appear. Hey, Carrots. I'm surprised you're not already at it. And Clawhauser? What are you doing here so early? I could've sworn you didn't even wake up this early,” Nick said, tilting his head to the side. He waited for a response, but heard a faint snore coming from the cheetah. “Haha! He's sleeping! This is going to be so good,” Nick whispered, excitedly, looking at Judy before taking out his phone and wrapping his arms around her. “Smile!” he said, clicking the camera and taking a selfie of them with Clawhauser slumped over in between them.

 

“Nick, stop that!” chiding him and slapping his arm mildly.

 

“Fine by me. Won't stop me from setting it as my background image though,” he said, throwing a grin her way.

 

“You always make selfies your background image. I think you've got a narcissism problem,” she said, motioning for him to follow her to the gym. Putting his phone away and picking up his bag, he complied, easily grinning wider than before.

 

“Only the ones you're in, Carrots,” he pointed out.

 

“You should vary it up a bit. Get some photos of home in there or something.”

 

“What can I say? I grew up on the streets. The whole city's my home. I just happen to be more comfortable here,” he said, opening the door to the gym for her. “Besides, home is where your heart is, isn't it?” he said, noticing Judy blush and she shuffled past him, letting out a chuckle before following her inside.

 

Their daily routine was pretty tame by ZPD fitness standards: ten kilometers on the indoor track, followed by one hundred push ups, one hundred sit ups, and one hundred squats. Every day they did this. They weren't lifting industrial tires over their heads and sprinting with them like Chief Bogo, but they made do. Judy usually won their daily competitions, but Nick has been catching up lately, keeping pace with her to the point where it didn't even seem like they were competing. Afterward, he would always make some smart remark like how she's slowing down because she was “built for running” and that, even if they finished at the same time, he was the faster one. She just rolled her eyes, opened the door for him, and led the way to the briefing room. The department might be in a bind with the budget cuts, but their jobs – their lives – had been as stable as ever.

 

“On your feet!”

 

The chatter of the briefing room was cut short when Chief Bogo entered, looking down at a stack of folders in his hands before making eye contact with the room. “Take seats, take seats,” he waved, “good morning everyone.”

 

A unanimous “good morning, sir” roared through the room.

 

“Right, first things first: we've had it easy these past few weeks, but city hall wants us to step up our transit presence as work on the MetroTrail expansion continues. Officers Trunks, Hoofowitz, and Gallup will be patrolling the border walls of Savannah Square and the warehouse district. Officers Pardus and Onca – you have the central business district. Officers Hopps and Wilde,” he paused looking up at the only two officers sharing a chair in the room, “civic center and central railway station. Can't have the two most notable officers in this department straying too far from home, now, can we?”

 

“Civic center and central station, huh? Well, there are worse places, I suppose. At least we'll have reception the entire time,” Nick said, jumping off the chair and picking up a log sheet from the chief's desk. “Come on, Hopps,” he motioned toward the door. They could overheard Chief Bogo rattling off more duty assignments to some of the newer officers – subway duty, parking enforcement, litter patrol. Compared to the newbies, they had it pretty good – in Nick's mind anyway; Judy's shoulders slumped over as she closed the door and they made their way to the garage.

 

“I don't mind this assignment, but this is the second week in a row we've been assigned to cover the Civic Center,” Judy said, disappointment in her voice. “It's actually more boring than I thought. Cameras and private security do most of the work downtown anyway.”

 

“Well, city hall needs protection, too, you know,” he added, “besides, there's a new bakery at central station that I wanted to check out. They've got blueberry pie!”

 

Judy looked over and shook her head, “you've got a serious blueberry problem.”

 

As they made their way down to the garage, they waved off their colleagues already pulling out. Doing this had become both routine and ritual in their two years together, so much so that when the other was off, Judy would have imaginary conversations with Nick in the car, and Nick would sometimes forget that he was supposed to drive himself. Buckling in, Nick got on the radio as Judy pulled them out. “Dispatch, this is unit 07-11, heading out on patrol.”

 

They could hear Clawhauser pawing at the dispatch radio on his desk before they could hear him. It made Judy smile. “Unit 07-11, this is dispatch, confirming. Have a safe day.”

 

“You too, buddy. Don't get too drowsy,” Nick said. A smile on his face, he rolled down the window so he could put his arm out. They turned onto the main boulevard in the middle of rush hour. Thankfully, they were heading away from business district. They could see officers Pardus and Onca – a leopard and a jaguar – cursing the morning traffic from inside their vehicle. They probably wouldn't reach the central business district for another hour.

 

“Poor souls. See, Carrots? At least we don't have to put up with that nonsense. It's just a straight drive down to the train station and we can walk essentially our entire shift.”

 

He was right – he usually was. From a stress perspective, maintaining order in a well-to-do area like civic center was worlds better than donning riot gear and facing down the angry residents of Tundratown. The ubiquity of security cameras and witnesses in central station would make the paperwork on any arrests they made easier as well. But easy policing wasn't what Judy had signed up for, and she took umbrage with how laid back Nick was at their celebrity status.

 

“Wouldn't it be nice to work on a big case, for once?” she asked, parking next to the station.

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like our first case, before you joined the force.”

 

“I'd rather not relive flying through the air that many times. We don't exactly have wings, you know,” he said. Opening the door, he put on his sunglasses, scanning around to see if anything suspicious was going on. Satisfied, he looked back at Judy while she was getting ready to exit the car. “Besides, I don't think the city could handle it.”

 

She nodded in agreement, closing the door and walking next to him toward the mezzanine overlooking the incoming trains. The central station held a lot of memories for Judy. She could never forget how curious everything seemed, from the pneumatic tubes meant to ferry smaller mammals around to the intricate water-tubes and air-dry vents that served to ferry amphibious animals to their destinations in style and comfort. It was here, and in the districts along the train route, that she learned for the first time that the entire city, by engineering and design, was truly meant to encapsulate the ideal that animal should not fight among animals. The city was built for them as equals, and she loved it as much. The proof was by her side.

 

“How many times have we patrolled this station now?” she asked, turning around on the railing to face the station while he kept watch over the rail yard. His ears twitching every time a train whistle went off, he looked off into the distance as the last of the rush hour trains came in.

 

“I don't know. Must be hundreds, by now. First there was the whole 'you're not leaving civic center' after you got injured and then it was 'you're not leaving civic center' after the new mayor made us the poster children for the force. Now it's 'you're not leaving civic center' because of budget cuts. Yeah, it's got to be hundreds,” Nick said, tail slowly kicking back and forth, as if recalling a dream. “I'd say I know this station as much as I know you.”

 

“Yeah?” she said, nudging him in the shoulder. “But neither of us has really spent time here, have we? I mean, when I came to Zootopia two years ago, this place seemed so,” she paused to tilt her head upward. The digital billboard that looped Gazelle advertisements during her first trip to the city had been updated to feature an oversize image of Nick and Judy, back-to-back, with the words 'Every Animal is Welcomed at the ZPD'. Closing her eyes and turning herself to Nick, she opened them before smiling. “Everything seemed so magical to me. It's not like we had all this back at Bunnyburrow. Now it seems as if my entire career with the ZPD is just an everyday chore. So many times through this station and how many times have we actually caught a criminal?”

 

“Well, I did arrest that one kid who kept throwing fire crackers in the toilets that one time,” Nick said, putting his hands on his waist. “And there was the other time where you so daringly brought down a graffiti gang. Cute kids, otherwise, though.”

 

“I mean real criminals, Nick. I wanted to make a difference to this city, not be a glorified graffiti cop,” she said, sighing. She wondered how many of the incoming trains carried animals like her, filled with dreams about what Zootopia was, only for them to get through that initial jubilee and settle into the long haul of anxiety and fear. What was her purpose here at ZPD now? If she wasn't catching criminals or making the city a safer place, what was the purpose of putting on a uniform and badge every morning?

 

“Listen, Carrots, you can only do so much. It's not your fault that the Chamber of Commerce corruption case didn't fall in your lap. And, to be honest, I think it's better that it didn't. It means our side of town is doing what's right. Quiet days are good for us. They're good for the city.”

 

Again, Nick was right. As boring as civic center was, the fact that there were so few incidents in this part of town meant that it was a safe space. People often left their car doors unlocked outside of city hall and ZPD headquarters because they thought the area was as safe as their own home. It should be as safe as their own home. That didn't stop her from wishing that, just once, a case could fall in their lap that made the job exciting for her again.

 

As she thought that, however, she heard the slightest of noises coming from inside the station: hooves clacking against the polished stone of the station floor, and in a faster tempo than even the busiest rush hour crowd would generate. Intermittent clacks, followed by shouting.

 

“Nick, do you hear that?” she said, tugging on the sleeves of his uniform.

 

“Hear what, Carrots? I don't hear a thing.”

 

“There's something going on inside the station. Follow me!” she said, running inside and down the first flight of stairs to the arrivals level. Through the gap in the central lobby, she could see two yaks wrestling on the departure level downstairs. They were dressed in bloodied suits, with a few pools of blood off to the side, stemming from, what she could tell, were injured bystanders. She sprinted down the stairs and shouted to her partner behind her. “Nick! There's two yaks fighting with their horns! Ground level! I'll need help!”

 

“I got you! I'll loop around to the other side once I get something! Keep them distracted for me!” he yelled, running across the arrivals area toward the parking lot as she arrived on the departures floor. Reaching for her taser in one hand and her radio in the other, she first got in contact with Clawhauser.

 

“Dispatch this is Officer Judy Hopps. I have an incident of two horned animals charging each other at central station. Multiple wounded. Send officers and medical personnel, over.” As she was done rattling off the situation to Clawhauser, she raised her taser to the two yaks, standing her ground almost a dozen meters away from them. Even at that range, if she enraged one of them, they could spear her within seconds. She saw two pigs lying on the ground, unresponsive, and a sloth struggling to apply pressure to his wounds. The owner of a juice shop had apparently closed the protective gates to his store, keeping his customers safe inside. They were recording everything with their phones.

 

“Both of you! Stand down! I'm an officer with the Zootopia Police Department, and you will cease fighting at once!”

 

The two yaks did disengage, snorting at each other before looking at Judy, and looking back to each other again. One of them spat in her direction, getting on all fours and snorting at her. Blood dripped off both of their horns.

 

“I say again, stand down and surrender! This is your final warning!” she shouted, apparently having little effect. The yak on all fours stomped his hooves while the other one sat down, adjusting his tie. She readied her fingers on the trigger. One shot – she would have one shot and then would need to do something about the other yak. This wasn't good at all.

 

“I'd listen to her if I were you. A voice came from on top of the juice shack, calm as it was commanding. Coolly raising his sunglasses, he pointed a large net gun at both yaks. “Better to head down to the station in handcuffs than a sack, am I right?”

 

As the yaks turned their attention toward Nick, Judy fired off a shot from her taser to the yak on all fours, while Nick fired the net gun toward the one sitting down. While Judy's taser hit its mark, throwing the yak off balance, his movements post-shock threw him in front of the net fired by Nick, forcing the other yak to stand up and charge Judy. Dodging to the right, she used food court furniture to make her way to a branch of a decorative palm tree, fiddling inside her uniform for a spare set of probes to load into her taser.

 

The yak, however, ran for the exit, not allowing Judy or Nick time to reload their less-than-lethal arsenal. As he rounded the final departure gate, however, a large, black figure tackled him to the ground: Officer Pardus. She could see Officer Onca walk through the first departure gate as his panther partner subdued and arrested the yak. Both cats looked up as Nick was helping Judy climb down from the palm tree, and gave them a thumbs up.

 

“So, you were saying about excitement?” Nick said, nudging Judy off her balance. He winked as he went over to the yak in the net and began tying it up.

 

“That was,” she managed to break out, gasping for air. She didn't have a problem breathing so much as she had a problem working through the adrenaline in her body. “That was amazing. That's why I joined this department.”

 

“Well, you got your wish and city hall got theirs,” Nick said, pointing to the juice stand full of customers, some of whom were still recording, some of whom were clapping. “This is probably the best footage they're going to get all year. Can't say the same for us, though. Man, is this going to be a lot of paperwork,” Nick sighed, finishing tying the knot on the yak's net and paramedics rushed into the station, ready to tend to the wounded. It was, for the first time in two years, Judy's first day back to the fight.

 


	3. Out with the Old, In with the New

**Chapter II: Out with the Old, In with the New**

 

The flash of cameras covered Mayor Felis in a constant aura of illumination, the click-clicking of the shutters almost shutting out her voice over the microphones on the podium. She yawned – a signature pattern of her species when speaking at length – before continuing. “Furthermore, it appears that our officers overreacted with a level of force not required for a simple civil misconduct charge which the district attorney has sought to hand out. There is simply no evidence to corroborate the testimony laid out by Officers Hopps and Wilde and I, alongside my entire administration, wholeheartedly apologize to Goldman Yaks. The apparent illegal detention of two of their executives, and the dishonesty shown by the police department in their handling of this case, reflects poorly upon them and the city of Zootopia. As your mayor, I pledge to-”

 

“Turn it off,” Nick said. It was less of a request than an order, though speaking to Chief Bogo this way was unwise, even by his standards.

 

“What is she talking about!” Judy screamed at the top of her lungs. Nick didn't say a word, but from his depressed ears to his overactive tail, Judy could tell he was livid. “They maimed three civilians! They tried to take me down! There were dozens of witnesses! Including Officers Pardus and Onca! What-”

 

“Calm down, Hopps! Calm down!” Chief Bogo yelled. If the decibel differential between their voices didn't shut her up, his commanding authority did. She said back down and crossed her arms. “The district attorney's office got back to us after you two went home that night. The surveillance footage from central station didn't turn up anything.”

 

“Are you kidding me?” Nick asked, putting his paw over his mouth. “There were dozens of cameras on that level alone! How is that even possible?”

 

“From what I understand, there seemed to be a malfunction. The footage doesn't show the scuffle. Or you, for that matter. There's no missing data on the tape either. Forensics looked at the footage the night of the arrests, and on the magnetic tapes, nothing was swiped, which means the cameras were recording continuously. We have someone from IT looking into it at the moment.”

 

“What about the eyewitnesses? Let alone the victims!” Judy pleaded, sinking down into her chair. She looked at Nick for validation, but only found him staring at the ground, paw on his muzzle, lost in thought.

 

“Nothing has surfaced on social media, despite your claims that there were dozens of people recording the event. And as for the victims, well, we can't seem to find them. The ambulance corps that took the three wounded civilians from the scene were all private. A subpoena turned up their admission and discharge records from local hospitals, but all the addresses they gave to first responders were dead ends. Factories and warehouses. We do have the testimony of Officers Pardus and Onca to back you up that there were injured civilians on the ground, but-”

 

“But what, Chief?” Judy asked. She rarely interrupted Chief Bogo. The buffalo seemed to take note of this peculiarity and let the indiscretion slide. He trusted his officers. Despite Officers Hopps and Wilde being relatively new to the force, they'd still proven themselves in battle. He didn't want to believe they were lying. Hopps's face certainly betrayed the fact that she wasn't.

 

“But, because they didn't actually witness the scuffle or your arrest, we have no corroborating evidence on the crime itself. Even the juice vendor seems to have disappeared. No one answered the door when I asked third precinct to make a house call.”

 

“Chief, what about the physical evidence? Blood from all three victims was found on one of the yaks' horns. Can't we- can't we convince the district attorney to use that for a temporary holding order?” Judy protested.

 

“We could. Were it so easy. They weren't murder victims, which means the decision to press charges still lies with them. And until we locate the victims – or until they turn up dead – we have no authority to press the case on those grounds. I'm sorry, Hopps, but the DA has made their case. There's nothing I can do,” Chief Bogo said, hanging his head. It was very rare for such a clear-cut case like this to slip through the system, and the entire situation reeked of outside influence.

 

“Chief, the mayor said that the two yaks were executives at Goldman Yaks?” Nick asked, finally looking up from the floor. “Why would two high-powered executives from a big-shot company be duking it out in the middle of a train station?” He animated his hands, laying them before him like an imaginary table with all the evidence were spread out in front of him. “You have two executives fighting in a public place, one of whom ends up mauling three bystanders, and all the evidence and witnesses disappear? Nothing on camera, nothing on social media, nothing in the hospitals. The evidence has clearly been tampered with. And the witnesses too.”

 

“That may be, but the district attorney doesn't see it that way,” Bogo said. “And besides, they've plead guilty to one count apiece of disobeying a lawful order from a police officer – charges that might be dropped since city hall is playing this as aggressive use of force against you two.”

 

“Except the DA doesn't have a thing to say about it,” Judy said. Her paw had been locked to her jaw, just as Nick's had been earlier. “The assaults occurred in Central Station, which means the Zootopia Criminal Code isn't the only legal force in effect. We can open an investigation under the Zootopia Transit Safety Code as well!” she said, springing up from her seat. “Title sixteen, article fifty-two deals with the safety of passengers on Zootopian transit. Offenses are routes to the traffic courts – independent of the DA and criminal courts! And the prosecution is handled by the chief of the transit department!” She said all this in gusto, confidence rising in her voice. “Chief, everything we need to go after them for conspiracy for tampering evidence and assaulting those passengers is already there!”

 

The chief raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms, incredulous. “I'm impressed, Officer Hopps. When did you memorize the Zootopian Administrative Code?”

 

Judy wrapped one arm around her head, blushing, but suppressing a smile. “Well, you see, sir, when you posted me on traffic duty initially – or whenever Nick; I'm sorry, whenever Officer Wilde isn't here with me – I like to go through Legistar on my phone.”

 

“On official duty?” he asked. Now the chief just seemed annoyed.

 

“Only on breaks, sir! Or whenever I meet my ticket quota for the day, which you know doesn't take long,” she said, her voice trailing off. Better to cut this short before she got in any actual trouble. “But, like I said, it's only when Officer Wilde isn't in, so I don't get the chance to rifle through the code that often.”

 

“Maybe I should schedule you two apart more often. It seems like you're learning a thing or two,” he quipped.

 

“There's no need for that, chief,” Nick said. Standing up, he looked the buffalo in the eyes – admittedly a hard thing to do, given their height difference, but something about a fox's eyes had the power to disarm even alpha animals. “If you give the go ahead, me and Judy will bring you some indictments. We'll find the missing victims, too.”

 

Judy tried to interrupt him and remind Nick not to call her by her first name in front of the chief, but the buffalo got the final say before she had a chance to open her mouth.

 

“Alright. I don't see the harm in trying. The mayor's office is turning this into a field day, you know. They've been meaning to cut the department's budget as far as other departments for the last year, but with you two as the public faces of the ZPD, the council won't budge. They drag you through the mud and every officer in the city follows.”

 

“We'll solve this case, sir,” Judy said, perking to attention and nudging Nick to do the same.

 

“I sincerely hope so, Officer Hopps. Right now all you've done is piss off a powerful company and convince city hall that maybe we don't need so many officers after all. The media hasn't even touched the tampered evidence angle, either, for what it's worth.”

 

“So we're heading into this blind, with no evidence, and against some of the most powerful animals in the city? Typical,” Nick said. He couldn't help but smile. “I wouldn't have it any other way, sir.”

 

“Alright then. Officers Hopps and Wilde, you are dismissed. Conduct your investigation. I want preliminary reports on my desk every twenty-four hours. If I don't have them, this investigation doesn't move forward.”

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

The duo left the office with their patrol caps under their arms, Nick looking enthusiastic, while Judy leaned against the door and slid down to the floor.

 

“You alright, Carrots? You seemed pretty gung-ho in there,” Nick asked, placing his paw on her head, gently rubbing back and forth.

 

“It's like you said: no evidence, forthcoming witnesses, no available victims. I have no idea where to start.”

 

“Well, the dispatch logs from Clawhauser would be a good place to start. That should give us time stamps and radio transcripts for the entire district on the day of the assaults, including, you ready for this? Private ambulances called to service by ZPD officers.”

 

She looked up at him and tilted her head, his paw still there. “Why would private ambulance calls be logged into the radio database?”

 

“Zootopia Administrative Code: title ten, article ten,” he said, a smile creeping up across his face. “You think I didn't notice you studying without me? Come on, I'm a fox! We're more perceptive than that!”

 

She sat there staring at Nick for at least a few awkward moments before lunging up and hugging him. “Nick! Oh my god!”

 

“I even know which dumpsters are illegal in each district if you want to go out and ticket some poor souls,” he said, returning the hug. “Come on, Clawhauser's waiting.”

 

Breaking apart, they turned toward the stairs. The station was usually empty, mid-day, aside from the occasional officer bringing in a graffiti artist or bootlegger. Officer Clawhauser saw at his desk, humming along to music on his smart phone.

 

“Well if it isn't Mr. and Mrs. Bag-a-Yak! You know I didn't want to cross you two before but now, oh! You two sure don't let that training go to waste, do you!” Clawhauser said, limping his paw in their direction, still moving his head to the music. “What can I do for you two sweethearts today?”

 

Nick leaned into the desk while Judy stood back. “Hey bud, could I trouble you for the radio logs from the day we made those arrests?”

 

“Yeah, no problem, Officer Wilde. You know, Hopps, Gazelle's having a countryside concert tour this year? I hear Bunnyburrow is hosting some events!”

 

“Huh? You don't say,” she said. It was odd for Bunnyburrow to get anything remotely interesting from Zootopia – even the TV channels were essentially public access. Why would Gazelle head there?

 

“And it's done! Hope this helps you guys,” Clawhauser said, handing Nick a USB stick with a tab attached to it. 'Official Property of the ZPD' it read. Better not download movies on this thing. “Oh, by the way, someone from the mayor's office called earlier and was asking for you two. They told me to give you this message.” Clawhauser reached inside his desk and handed Nick a piece of paper with a phone number on it. Nothing else was written.

 

“Just the number?” Nick asked, turning it over.

 

“Just the number. They said to call the office as soon as possible, though. You think it has anything to do with your arrest the other day?”

 

“Given our luck it just might,” Nick said, turning to leave. “Thanks, Clawhauser. We'll be back if we need anything else.” He took off, Judy close behind, heading toward the garage. They didn't have to run, but he sensed that, just like him, she wanted to find out what was on these logs before calling the mayor's office as well.

 

When they reached their cruiser and plugged the USB into their laptop, they had their answer.

 

“Dispatch this is Officer Judy Hopps. I have an incident of two horned animals charging each other at central station. Multiple wounded. Send officers and medical personnel, over.”

“Roger. Central dispatch to first precinct units, we need additional officers at central station.”

“Got it. Unit 07-12, Officers Pardus and Onca responding.”

“Roger Unit 07-12. Medical dispatch this is ZPD central, we need medical personnel and ambulances at central station for multiple wounded.”

“ZPD central this is medical dispatch. Private medical services have already been called to that location by a private citizen. Do you need more units?”

“How many units are responding?”

“Patient capacity is currently five to fifteen depending on the size of the patient animals.”

“Medical dispatch, stand-by. We'll confirm additional units with the responding officers.”

 

Nick and Judy looked at each other as the audio played. “I didn't hear anything over the radio for a police dispatch to central station before I heard that fight,” Judy said, shaking her head.

 

“Neither did I. And medical dispatch said that ambulances had already been called, but the police hadn't? If only we could get the medical dispatch logs.”

 

“But why would ambulances be dispatched without telling ZPD central?”

 

Nick's eyes widened, looking, no, searching for Judy's in turn. “Routine, scheduled medical calls don't have to be reported to ZPD. That means that medical dispatch didn't rule it as an emergency because the ambulances had been scheduled ahead of time.”

 

Judy seemed to get what Nick was hinting at, returning his gaze, “which means that the entire incident was staged from the start.” But how? Judy had been there. She'd seen the blood and the victims. She'd seen how terrified those people in the juice hut looked. She didn't care how many aspiring actors were in this city – you couldn't fake that expression if you held a talent call for the entire metropolis.

 

“What are you doing?” Judy asked as she saw Nick pulling out his phone.

 

“Dialing the number that city hall wanted us to. It's got to be related, right? I don't know how – to be honest I don't really care how – but it has to be,” he said, pressing the call button and putting the phone on speaker so Judy could hear. “Let's hear what they have to say.”

 

Two rings, followed by an unusually peppy voice on the other end uncommon for a bureaucrat. “Cynthia Spots here, how can I help you?” the voice asked.

 

“Yeah, this is Officer Wilde with Officer Hopps here at ZPD. Someone from this office asked us to call them?”

 

“Oh, yes, that was me. I'm the mayor's chief of staff. Let me say it's a pleasure to speak to the heroes of Zootopia themselves! You know, aside from this little incident this past Thursday over those two yaks in central station, you two have weighed quite heavy on the mayor's thoughts this last year. We've wanted to contact you sooner, but we've had our paws full with the budget fight with council. I hope you know we fought for ZPD when the time came!”

 

“Yeah, I'm really grateful for that. What did you want?” Nick asked, his ears moving to the back of his head, tapping his paws against the ground. He was getting annoyed very quickly.

 

“Well, as it so happens, everyone up here at city hall has been thinking: you two are already the poster children for success in the Mammal Inclusion Program at the ZPD, why not expand it? We want both of you to come work full time on the Mammal Inclusion Program. Actually, we want Ms. Hopps to be the director and for you to be the spokesman, Mr. Wilde.”

 

Judy looked aghast, completely at odds with the situation. She grabbed Nick's phone from him, her ears expressing her dismay, as she tried to make sense of what was just said. “I'm sorry, you said you wanted me to run the Mammal Inclusion Program? Why me? Why not someone more qualified or, I don't know, interested?”

 

“Because you have star value, Ms. Hopps. Heading the MIP would only add to your value in this administration, and you'd be looking at 'first rabbit department chair' or 'first rabbit senior adviser' pretty quickly. I guarantee you'd have more of an impact for minority prey-mammals in this positions than as a patrol officer for the ZPD.”

 

“And me? Why me?” Nick asked.

 

“You, Mr. Wilde, are the greatest news story ever told. A former criminal-turned-cop who solved one of Zootopia's biggest scandals with your equally underdog partner. Do you know how many down-and-out foxes would look up to you as a role model and strive for success in our city if we had you as the spokesman for the MIP? Think about it, Mr. Wilde, no fox would ever have to go through what you went through ever again.”

 

Nick and Judy kept looking at each other, shaking their heads. Why them? And why now? What purpose could putting them in charge of the MIP possible serve?

 

“I'm sorry, Ms. Spots, but we're in the middle of an investigation right now, we can't just leave our jobs at the ZPD and-” Judy was saying as she was interrupted by the bureaucrat on the other side.

 

“Do you mean the investigation into the two yaks you arrested the other day, Ms. Hopps? Because the district attorney has already made his mind quite clear on that matter. Any further investigation from you might very well push him over the edge into launching an investigation into you two.”

 

“An investigation into _us_? Why?” Nick asked, raising his voice. “We've done nothing wrong!”

 

“Ah, but the evidence doesn't seem to suggest that, now does it, Mr. Wilde? In politics, as in law enforcement, the truth is often hard to glean. All we're doing is offering the two stars of the MIP a way out of this mess without having to involve the district attorney any further.”

 

“This is ludicrous,” Nick said, his voice verging on a scream. “Me and Judy have been together for two years now! On the force! Protecting our loved ones! Now you're going to take that away and stuff us in some office?”

 

“Mr. Wilde, we wouldn't be sticking you in an office, we'd be sticking you where everyone could see you. The pride and joy of this administration's efforts to include dispossessed species such as foxes into the higher echelons of Zootopian society. I know you understand.”

 

“Like hell I do!” he shouted, throwing his phone against the concrete wall, breaking it. He breathed heavily for a few moments, before looking down at his crushed phone. Picking it up, he looked back at Judy, ears pressed against the top of his head. “I shouldn't have done that, should I?”

 

She came up and patted him on the back, looking between his face and his phone. “Well, now how am I supposed to call you when we're off work? Dumb fox.”

 

This made him smile, before he started walking out of the garage and into the fading sunlight of the evening.

 

“Where are you going?” Judy asked, following him every step of the way.

 

“Heading to get a couple drinks. Want to come?”

 

“Yeah, I think I need a few myself. Let's go, Nick,” she said. They nodded to the rhino on garage duty before turning onto the sidewalk, hailing a cab off the street. Nick left his broken phone on the sidewalk.

 


	4. Risky Business

**Chapter III: Risky Business**

 

They got to the bar at a quarter past eight. Judy gave the cabbie a generous tip and gave the place a good look-down, while Nick walked straight to the door. It was a homely place, stuck away on a side street somewhere near University City, but not so close that the student crowd hung out after classes. Most of the cars parked nearby were either olden jalopies she hadn't seen since her days in Bunnyburrow or the newer, miniature pickup trucks filled with tools from local construction workers. An empty police cruiser sat in an alleyway next door, parked in between them and an abandoned warehouse. Nick held the door open for her as two pigs came outside to smoke a cigarette.

 

“What is this place?” she asked, looking up at Nick as he nodded his head to various people in the room. It was a small place a few tables off the the side separated from the bar by a tiny, central aisle. She heard the smacking of pool balls in a room off to the side, saw a few mice passed out on the bar already, still dressed in their safety jackets, and smelled nothing but a mixture of sweat, cigarette smoke, and alcohol. Nick placed his arm on her shoulder and motioned around the room.

 

“This,” he said, looking down at her, “is where I grew up, for the most part. St. Bernard's Alehouse. Back then, the owners didn't card and the ZPD didn't really care, so the bartenders tolerated me because my tricks would keep people entertained and keep coming back. It didn't hurt that I earned my keep here, either.”

 

“Uh huh, and by 'earn your keep', you mean-”

 

“Slight of hands, confidence tricks, loaded dice. I told you, Carrots, the hustle is real. Places like this is where it starts,” he said, sitting down at the bar. As she joined him, a rotund St. Bernard who was cleaning glasses looked over in their direction. He seemed to recognize Nick, putting the glass down before walking over to them, careful not to bump anything behind the cramped bar. It was hard for Judy to imagine that this place could've been built for rabbits, let alone larger species. The St. Bernard settled in front of Nick, opening his eyes before standing up straight, let out a sigh.

 

“I was worried that was you, Nicky. Last I heard, you were doing pretty well for yourself on the straight and narrow. What are you doing back here?” the dog asked him, leaning into the fox's face.

 

“What can I say, home is home,” Nick said, throwing his card on the table. “I'll have the usual.”

 

“Fox poison, then? You sure have a sense of humor, Nicky. Who's the cute bunny?” the dog said, nodding his head in Judy's direction. She raised her paw to object.

 

“Uh, excuse me. I don't know if you know this, but-”

 

“I know what I said, miss. No offense to you here, but I don't know you and you ain't from around here. Just tagging along with Nicky isn't going to cut it, I'm afraid.”

 

“Relax, Saint,” Nick said, putting his arm around Judy. “She's with me. She'll take the same.”

 

Saint grunted and turned his back to them, Judy folded her arms, as if to cover up her offense. “The fox and the hound go way back, huh? What's his deal?”

 

Nick smiled, turning his seat to hers, leaning his free arm on the bar and maintaining the other around her. “Well, this place was meant for rabbits, don't you know?”

 

“What, the tiny bar?”

 

Nick shook his head and looked at her in the eyes, “no, the entire neighborhood. That warehouse next door used to be home to the United Carrot, Cabbage, and Celery Company. Before you kids and your smart phones came around, the workers and their kids would play stickball out in the street in front of the bar. You'd be surprised at how worked up you rabbits can get trying to beat a fox at a game of dice,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “So emotional,” he added, tapping her on the shoulder.

 

Judy rolled her eyes, incredulous. “You mean you made your mark on Zootopia conning rabbits out of their hard-earned cash at dice?”

 

“Me? No! I never said it was me. When I ran away from home twenty years ago, this place just called to me for some reason. Even though the neighborhood was filled with rabbits, they didn't instinctively run away from me or kick me to the curb like, well, everywhere else I tried to go. This place was the diamond in the rough. The first time I walked in that door, Finnick was sitting right over there, conning a half-dozen rabbits out of their day's wages,” he said, looking over his shoulder to the growing pile of mice construction workers on the other side of the bar. “He saw me walk in and said 'there's my long-lost boy! Which one of you morons owes me a hundred bucks!'”

 

He turned his entire body to the bar now, watching Saint come over to deliver their drinks, laying them down on the bar with some coasters and barking over to one of the mice trying to reach behind the counter. “He gave me all one hundred dollars he earned off that bet and said he'd teach me to earn my way in this world, and I did. All from this bar stool right here.” Nick tapped the counter with his fist, looking over at Judy, her paws equally drawn to her face and toward Nick. “Anyway, here's to being the face of ZPD, huh? Cheers.” He took the drink – a strange, blue cocktail with as much ice as liquor – before downing it in a few gulps. Judy decided to sip hers. Even then, the strength burned her throat, and she had to suppress coughing after the first few times.

 

Nick seemed to sense her distress and patted her on the back. “Relax, Carrots, you'll be fine. You'll get used to it.”

 

Judy looked over at him, his face wandering down to the counter in a way that suggesting his reminiscing was more than rumination. She decided that he didn't really invite her out just to have a drink. Reaching out her paws, she put one on his near shoulder and another on his paws, themselves clasped together as in prayer.

 

“Nick, I-”

 

“Anyway, shortly after the dot-com boom-and-bust, the factories around here started to shut down. No factories meant no need for warehouses. The rabbits left shortly after that. But until I was sixteen, this place was my world, and Finnick and me were its kings. I felt like I could live forever in this place, with the same faces – the same cons. Everything was the same. You could wake up from one day to the next and live the same routine over again but feel satisfied at the end of the day, and the whole block would end up at St. Bernard's at the end of the night, anyway, and any bad blood would disappear in a few rounds after that.” He allowed her to take one paw of his, placing his free paw over hers, clasping her paw in his.

 

“I felt the same way about ZPD, but I've been around the block too many times to know when the game's about to come crashing down.”

 

“Nick, you can't be sure of that. Even without the evidence from the station, we've been able to restart the investigation and start making some headway,” Judy said, not entirely convinced herself of the argument she was trying to make. “We'll make sure to nab these guys and get back to what we've been doing.”

 

“Which is?”

 

Judy noticed Saint coming back to their side of the bar and took out her wallet. Imitating Nick, she downed her Fox Poison and laid her credit card on the counter. “Saint, next round's on me! Two more Fox Poisons!” she shouted, he eagerly took her card and nodded to her. Judy looked at Nick and answered him, “looking good and getting paid to do it, of course!”

 

“And the whole 'make the world a better place' bit, I imagine,” he chided, laughing a little and shaking his head at her.

 

“And the 'make the world a better place' bit, yes,” she said, smiling. When Saint returned with their drinks, it was Judy who offered up a cheers, downing it with Nick in tempo and seeing him laugh and smack his leg.

 

“Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. Judy Hopps, star of the Zootopia Police Department, holding her own in a bar,” Nick said.

 

“Well, carrot picking isn't the only thing you learn on a farm,” she said, blushing and taking her paws away from him, quickly looking at them and putting them back on his, “I'm sorry was that uncomfortable? Did I go too fast? I think I went too fast,” Judy said, her voice accelerating. “I mean, uh, I'm sorry,” withdrawing her paws again, only for Nick to take them this time.

 

“Judy, I have no idea what you're talking about,” he said, motioning for Saint to come over with another round. “What's going on?”

 

“I, uh, it's nothing. It's just – do you remember two years ago? When we attended that Gazelle concert together?” she asked, fidgeting in her seat.

 

“Yeah? What about it?”

 

“I don't know, I had a lot of fun. I'm just glad I met you, Nick. The last two years have been really strange for me. I mean I dreamed of becoming a cop all my life and then within my first week I almost got myself fired and then I met you and I've just had a blast since then that I-” she paused, remembering the phone conversation from earlier. “I wouldn't want to continue this job without you, you know.”

 

Saint came by and looked at the two of them, putting down another round of Fox Poisons. Both of them eyed the drinks as they came down, using their presence as an excuse to break their grip on the other and turn back to the counter.

 

“I know,” Nick said. “Thanks for saying it, though.”

 

“Yeah.” She and Nick sipped their drinks in unison, done with downing them altogether. They drank in silence for a moment, watching a steady stream of customers coming and going. Saint was on the other side of the counter now, yelling at a customer on the floor to get up. Nick finally broke the silence when they finished drinking.

 

“You know, fox repellent really hurts,” he said, nudging Judy in the shoulder.

 

“Yeah? I bet you deserved it,” she replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

 

“I did not! I was minding my own business one day, when a rabbit pulled a can of it out on me after a card game. I didn't even cheat him out of any money, either, the little huckster. He robbed me of forty dollars of 'his' money that night. I couldn't stop itching for days. The worst part was was that everyone at the table believed I cheated the guy. Wasn't invited back to that club for years.”

 

“It's called a hustle, sweetheart,” Judy winked. “You got played. By a rabbit!” she slapped her knees at that. “A rabbit!”

 

“It wouldn't be the last time,” he said, turning again to look at her. He hadn't really paid attention to it before, but her amethyst eyes gave a wondrous contrast to her gray fur. She was stunning. He realized he got paid to work out, fight crime, and sit next to a beautiful animal almost every waking moment of his days. This wasn't too bad a life to live compared to the one he left behind.

 

“Dumb fox.”

 

“Sly bunny.”

 

They leaned forward, foreheads resting on the other, feeling the others' breath and yanking themselves closer. Nick swallowed, placing his hands around Judy's hips as he brought his head back, looking her in the eyes again, ready to make the move.

 

Officer Onca made it for them. Stepping in between the two, he sloppily licked Nick and Judy's faces, each recoiling in a mixture of confusion and disgust.

 

“Who-”

 

“What-”

 

“Why?” they both settled on, turning to the black panther in a startled unison.

 

“Now Nicky, I know you're an officer of the law now. I really don't think it's becoming of you to let your fellow officer linger over there on the floor while you fool around now, do you?” Saint said, behind the panther. “I cut this bloke off hours ago but he was still goofing around in the back. God, take him home will you. And take care of her. And you, missy, look after Nicky, will you? I know he may look suave and charming but really he's just a damn pup. Still needs a good kick in the ass every now and then.”

 

Saint looked utterly satisfied in himself. Years on the job let him know the perfect moment to strike, and given how angry Nick looked, his trick worked better than he could have hoped. That would teach the fox to ignore him for two years.

 

“Your drinks are on the house, by the way, Nicky! Consider it payment for all the business you brought in back in the day!” Saint shouted from across the bar, barely managing to contain himself as he picked up the landline from the bar to make a call as the last mice left the building.

 

“Thanks for nothing, you worthless old hound!” Nick shouted back. “Aw, geez. Come on, Carrots, let's get Big Guy out of here. He's still in uniform for God's sake!”

 

Due to their height difference, dragging Officer Onca out of the bar by his shoulder would have proved rather difficult, so Nick and Judy chose a simply method – drag him across the floor by his legs. The big cat proved heavier than he was worth in short order.

 

“I think he came straight after his shift ended,” Judy said, as they made it outside, dropping the leg to the ground.

 

“That would explain the car parked outside,” Nick said, motioning over to the patrol car still parked in the alleyway. “Come on, I've got an idea.”

 

Judy reached over to pick up the big cat's leg again – or she would have, if she hadn't fallen down in the process. She broke the fall with her arm, just barely missing Officer Onca in the process. Nick dropped the other leg and bent down beside her.

 

“Hey, you alright?”

 

“Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just a little dizzy. What the heck was in those things?”

 

“Well, a good third of it was vodka, so I was getting impressed when you downed the thing. I didn't know bunnies could handle themselves like that,” he said, sitting down beside her, a passed out jaguar between them.

 

“I went to high school once upon a time, Nick,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “Besides, I think I can handle a bit more than that weak sauce. I can take this entire city on!” she shouted, rising to her feet. “I can take on – I can take...I need a seat,” quickly backing down and scooting to the side of the building. “What were you going to do with him, anyway?”

 

“Well, none of us can drive right now and he's in a uniform. I was hoping to get him in the car and use the radio to call someone from the station to drive him to the garage. It'd make terrible press if the media found an officer drunk in his squad car in uniform, wouldn't it?”

 

“Look at you, Officer Nick Wilde, thinking of the bigger picture,” Judy said, scooting over to Nick, resting her head on his shoulder. “And how are _you_ going to get home?”

 

“Actually, I was planning on staying here. This place sets me at ease. I definitely think I'll be able to wrack my brain and find something for us to go on. Tracking down those victims and finding what happened to that evidence. Never thought I'd see the day when I took on Goldman Yaks.”

 

“That makes two of us,” she said. Nick wrapped his arm around her. They spent an indeterminate amount of time in peace, broken only by the occasional cackle from Office Onca. Nick could've sworn that Judy fell asleep, before her ears perked up and she raised her head.

 

“Do you hear that? Who's playing music that loud this late at night?” she asked, looking around.

 

“What music? What are you talking about? I don't hear anything.”

 

That was technically still true as he said it. Nick couldn't hear the music so much as he could feel it. The thumping of a bass line hit his chest harder than his own heartbeat; the screeching of tires he could tell hadn't been replaced in a decade; the profane lyrics of an artist dead before his time. There was only one animal in the city this could be.

 

Pulling up in front of the bar in a beat up, rust-colored van, Finnick rolled down his windows, Judy shielding her ears from the volume.

 

“Saint called me over here. Said you might need a favor taking care of this guy,” Finnick said, pointing to the passed out jaguar between them. “Just so you know, this gets me out of at least three tickets.”

 

“Two tickets and a parking violation,” Nick said, barely moving save to cross his arms across his chest.

 

“Deal. Look, I've got places to be, so don't get in my way. Sorry, Nicky, but Saint really called me on short notice. I just gotta get this guy, where?”

 

“ZPD central precinct garage.”

 

“Nick, what about the car?” Judy protested, slapping at his arm.

 

“Don't worry about the car, the car'll be taken care of,” Finnick said, jumping out of the passenger door and lifting the jaguar with more strength than an animal of his size ought rightfully possess. “You two need anything else?”

 

Nick looked over at Judy, still fastened to his shoulder, her ears telling him she was ready to sleep for the night.

 

“No, we're good, Fin. Thanks.

 

“I'll be by to collect, Nicky! I want that free parking spot!” Finnick said, loading the jaguar in the van before pulling away, the affront to all of their senses that was his van: the burnt rubber, the loud music, the thumping bass line, soon drifted back into the din of the city. Nick put his arm back around Judy and stared down the street he'd once called home as she fell asleep on his shoulder, curling her arms inward to grab onto his torso. Drifting off himself, he couldn't help but smile. This wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep outside Saint's place, but it was certainly the first time he'd done so where he wasn't alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter I managed to type before final publication. Thought that it would be a good idea to get a good chunk of text up before the schedule slips. Expect new updates every 2-3 days. I hope you've enjoyed so far.


	5. Police Line - Do Not Cross

**Chapter IV: Police Line – Do Not Cross**

 

The next few days hadn't been filled with much of anything except a particularly strong headache for Nick and constant bowel aggravation for Judy – both of which, they had agreed, were partially the others' fault for downing too much Fox Poison. Hours upon hours of empty work at the precinct, precipitated by a few leads on the traffic camera system, turned up nothing, before Chief Bogo came into their office with a grim break.

 

“Hopps. Wilde. Get packed, we're reopening the assault case on ZPD's side,” the chief said, barely stepping into their office before heading back into the din of the General Criminal Division. Nick sat at his desk, refusing to move, while Judy dutifully followed, jogging after the buffalo as he made his way toward the elevators.

 

“Sir! Excuse me, sir! What do you mean? I thought the district attorney's office didn't have any evidence on the yaks? Or any of the victims, for that matter.”

 

He pushed the down button before he acknowledged her, lowering his head to speak. “A body was just found in Tundratown. It appears one of your yak buddies was into more than just train yard scuffles.”

 

Judy stood there, stunned. She didn't say a word when the chief entered the elevator, nor did she say a word when she came back to the office she and Nick shared. It was only when Nick noticed her utter lack of spunk that he looked away from his computer screen and talked to her.

 

“So, what was that all about? Are we going to embarrass ourselves in front of the courts, too?”

 

“Nick, one of the yaks from the other day was just found in Tundratown. He's dead.”

 

Nick's eyes widened and he jumped out of his chair, suddenly full of energy, as if Judy's normal persona had invaded him and given him vigor. “What!” he yelled, throwing on his coat, grabbing her from the rack and putting it on her as she stood up, still dazed.

 

“We've got to get down there!” he said, opening the door and motioning for her to follow him. The walk to the elevator wasn't particularly long, and Nick was still waiting for one when Judy finally came around.

 

“I don't understand. How did a simple assault – an assault he got away with, mind you – lead to him getting murdered?” Judy said as they entered the elevator.

 

“Maybe one of the victims got revenge?” Nick offered, reaching into his pocket for his phone, forgetting for the fourth day in a row that he'd tossed it away last week.

 

“Or maybe that other yak he was fighting with decided that roughing him up in a train station wasn't enough. Something tells me we'll know more when we get there.”

 

“More than we want to know.”

 

The elevator chimed at the garage and they walked over to their cruiser – it was the only one from their squad still parked.

 

They spent the drive there in total silence. Judy had even silenced the pop radio she usually listened to on patrol, mentally preparing herself for the first murder case of her career. Nick watched her facial expressions, his paw clinging to the dispatch radio. If anything happened to them, he wanted the first words out of his mouth to be the details of her face.

 

Dispatch chatter began to die during the drive into the tunnel giving them access to Tundratown through the district's massive environmental retaining wall. Engineered, like the rest of Zootopia, to keep its habitat's ecosystems and climate controls intact and free from interference from the other district, it seemed to Nick that the walls themselves held secrets now. Exit the dry Savannah and enter the black and emerge from the other side in a snowy wonderland, populated by animals whose resolve was as hard as the wall that kept them safe. Nick felt a chill up his fur and turned up the heat in the car.

 

When they arrived at the scene, there was already a police cordon around the area. An ambulance – a city ambulance – was on the scene, alongside the city coroner. Blue and red lights flashed and reflected themselves off the bright snow.

 

“What's the scene look like?” Judy asked as she put the car in park, opening the door next to a deer paramedic.

 

“It's pretty horrible, but it's not the worst I've seen, if that's any consolation. It's surprisingly clean. Even your CSI guys said that whoever did this had to have been very thorough. The only blood out there is from cold compression of the wounds, squeezing the skin and muscles and forcing blood out of the body.”

 

Nick walked up behind Judy, crossing his arms and putting on his sunglasses. He hated Tundratown. The snow burnt his eyes.

 

“What do you mean 'squeezing blood out of the body'?” Nick asked.

 

“We came here in response to an officer from Tundratown precinct finding a yak face-down in the snow. We thought we'd be dealing with some poor animal who died of exposure, but there were multiple stab wounds all over the body – deep, too. They were stitched up tight, some of them already had scar tissue forming, but from the state of some of the wounds and the bruising below the skin in a lot of places, you can tell that most of them were relatively recent. I'd bet that he died from that, but you'd have to ask the coroner.”

 

“Thanks. Where's the body now?” Judy asked, jotting everything she could into a notebook – her carrot pen recording an audio file just in case she missed anything.

 

“Sure, right this way. Follow me,” the deer said, turning around and leading them behind the blue fences and yellow tape. The body laid around the corner of a building, dressed much in the same way the yak had been last week at the train station. A light dusting of snow still covered his shoes. Judy could see where the paramedics had cut the yak's shirt, trying to revive him, and ultimately how they'd come to inspect his injuries.

 

“Good to see you two finally made it,” the Chief said, turning around and pointing at the body.

 

“The crime scene's been picked clean. There's almost nothing to go by aside from the stab wounds. No murder weapon found in a five hundred meter area – even with our canine officers literally sniffing out leads, there's no trace of the victim's blood anywhere else in Tundratown.”

 

“Which means that he was murdered elsewhere,” Judy said. “He was only dumped in Tundratown after the fact.”

 

“That seems to be where this is heading, Officer Hopps,” Bogo said, shaking his head. “What's more, he's been stripped of virtually everything. No wallet. No cell phone. Nothing. The only thing we have to go on so far is his arraignment records, and those were sealed after he plead guilty to the misdemeanor charges.”

 

“I wouldn't be so sure of 'nothing', chief,” Nick said, taking off his sunglasses and handing them to Judy. “Here, hold these for me, will you?” he asked, raising his paws upwards and sniffing the corpse. Judy recoiled when she saw.

 

“Officer Wilde, we've already had our canine officers try that, so unless you foxes have-”

 

Nick cut him off, holding up his paw to silence him. He'd catch flak for it later, but right now, it was time to show Zootopia why they hired him. “Different breeds have different abilities, chief, and not every dog was bred to work in the snow or hear the vibrations of melting ice as a result of residual heat. Us foxes – well, we're a different species altogether.”

 

He prowled around the parking lot, earning him strained looks from his colleagues and other responders on the scene. He wondered what Judy must be thinking. He probably looked like an idiot, but it was true: he could feel his way through a snow pack just as easily as some dogs could through a forest – it was all a matter of instinct.

 

“Found you,” he said, jumping up and diving into a patch of snow on an abandoned road behind the parking lot. The snow pile was deeper than it indicated, and Nick disappeared under a white blanket of crystal and dust. Judy held her breath before running over to where he had jumped.

 

Nick was deep inside the hole he'd made for himself – much deeper than the road should have been. Judy could see snow at least twenty feet down the hole, a messy patch of red-orange fur giving her any indication that Nick was down there at all.

 

“What happens when you remove the cover to an abandoned storm-tunnel maintenance exit in an environment where it constantly snows and all melting and thawing is done manually? This right here!” he yelled. He threw a wallet up toward Judy, who, in her panic to catch it, dropped Nick's sunglasses. He took them out of the air and put them on in a single, fluid motion. “Next time don't send a dog to do a fox's work!”

 

“I'll be sure to tell the K-9 Club that!” Judy yelled back at him, forcing him to recant his statements and offer a worried mixture of apologies and pleas with Judy not to do exactly that. She smiled at him and turned back toward the scene.

 

“Chief, Nick found this in a maintenance tunnel covered with snow,” she said, turning the wallet over and looking intently as he inspected it.

 

“Goldman Yaks employee ID for Benjamin Bos,” he said, reading the ID in the plastic holder. “I don't know if this is him or not, but this is a good lead. I'll hand this off to CSI and we can review it back at the precinct. Make sure you and Officer Wilde take time to review the cameras around this area as well. Could be that whoever dumped his body here got caught in one of the tapes.”

 

“Yes, sir!” Judy said, standing at the position of attention before saluting. From the background, she could hear Nick yelling.

 

“I'm still stuck down here, you know!”

 

She laughed to herself and grabbed a few officers from the Tundratown precinct to help get her partner out of the hole, who ended up scowling at her for not helping her up sooner. He brushed the dust and snow off of his jacket before asking her what they were up to now.

 

“Chief and CSI are taking the wallet you found to central for processing. We're back to traffic cam duty,” she said, shaking her head. “I know it's not exactly your favorite line of work.”

 

“Are you kidding me?” Nick asked, raising his paw to cover his eyes, even though they should have been sheltered by the sunglasses already. He tended to embellish his actions whenever he was fired up. She loved that about him. “This is our first big break on our first big case – as a team, that least one didn't count.”

 

“Yeah? So you're saying you don't hate traffic camera duty now?”

 

“Oh no, I hate it like the plague, but if it gets us one step closer to tying together what that yak had to do with our missing evidence-”

 

“And his murder,” she reminded him.

 

“The missing evidence and his murder! If it gets us closer to that, then I'm all for it. Let's head back to the station,” he said, a spring in his step that was unlike him. When they reached they patrol car, Nick logged onto the central police database to get to the local traffic camera feed. Now he just needed to wait a few seconds for his credentials to authorize and he'd be in.

 

“System error? That can't be right.”

 

“Huh? Let me see,” Judy said, less requesting than demanding. Nick was always locking himself out of one digital system or another. She entered her credentials and was greeted with the same error message. She tried inputting them again, only to get the same response. “That can't be right,” she said, trying other functions of her cruiser's computer to test if it was the system or simply the local camera feed. She was able to access everything else in the police network, including the local feeds for other districts.

 

“Hold on, Carrots, I have an idea,” he said, taking the computer back from her and logging out of the police network.

 

“What are you doing? Anything we do will need to be processed through the ZPD database. If we can't access it from our computer, then we just have to drive back to the office to re-verify our credentials and get the feed from the server itself.”

 

“No, no, no – we're still able to access the feeds for the traffic citation system, remember?” Nick said, inputting his temporary duty credentials for access to the traffic enforcement network they had previously been provided for investigating the central station incident under traffic enforcement authority. The system logged them in and gave them full access to the local traffic logs. “We're in.”

 

Judy smiled at her partner – maybe he wasn't so digitally illiterate after all? “What do we have?”

 

“Hold on.” Nick entered their information into the traffic enforcement database and waited for a response. Once he indicated their specific location, they'd be given access to all the camera records throughout the day. “Alright, I'm in. I'm playing the file at four times normal speed. Let's see if anything happens.”

 

He put the laptop on the dashboard and waited. They both leaned forward, watching cars fly by in exaggerated action. Walking pedestrians seemed like they were sprinting to an unknown finish line. They watched the shadows move across the snow as the sun moved across the sky. Until they didn't.

 

“Nick, do you see this?” she asked, looking at him with the same sense of dread she'd felt when the district attorney announced that the video surveillance evidence for the central station assault simply didn't exist.

 

“Yeah, I don't like it. This reeks of tampering.”

 

At the speed they viewed the traffic logs, the shadows on the ground moved at an exaggerated, yet measured speed. They could almost tell the time to the minute on the time-stamp according to the shadows on the ground. Around noon, the time-stamp continued to tick upward, while the shadows on the ground froze in place. They weren't frozen entirely – she could still see the shadows creep forward from the buildings, but playing the video at an exaggerated speed brought a spotlight on the video editing. Some animal, somewhere, had edited the video footage to make sure the shadows on the ground moved at a rate that wouldn't be noticeable on normal speeds, all while allowing the time-stamp to continue running as if the cameras were still recording. Looping footage wasn't a particularly difficult process, she knew, but it required physical access to the cameras themselves, and that's what worried her.

 

She whispered his name, leaning back into the driver's seat. “I don't believe this. The same thing is happening all over again.” They'd finished the video footage for the day, allowing the feed to loop back to the morning.

 

“Whatever happened at the station is directly tied to this murder, including the missing evidence and witnesses,” he said, bringing his paw up to his face. “Whoever did this had physical access to both the local traffic cameras here in Tundratown as well as the cameras in the station.”

 

“And they also had the resources to disappear our witnesses and victims, and the foresight to know that something was about to happen, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to call the private ambulances from a private phone or set up the looping footage around the time of the murder.”

 

“And the fact that the footage loops in both cases despite some very physical activity taking place elsewhere means that they either assisted the perpetrator themselves or the perpetrator was assisting them.”

 

“In whatever crime they were committing. For some purpose, the evidence involving this particular yak and these two scenes was erased, Judy said, grasping the picture a little better in her mind. “Nick, we have evidence of a criminal conspiracy.”

 

“Circumstantial evidence, Carrots. Now we have to find hard evidence.”

 

“Where are we going to get it? The only lead we have is being processed at central and the autopsy won't be released for another week. If more crimes go committed, we're not going to have anything to go on other than evidence of forgery in the tapes.”

 

“Actually, Carrots, we do have something to go on – or someone, I should say. Let's switch seats. I know where we have to go,” Nick said, turning the laptop and the cruiser's radio transponder off. Judy obliged, but was concerned over her partner's activity: Nick always had a paw ready to radio for help even on routine patrols. Why would he turn the transponder off?

 

“Buckle up, Carrots, we're heading to the eye of the storm,” he said, taking his badge off and laying it on the dashboard. “You might want to do the same.”

 

For once, Judy didn't question it. All her training, all her dreams, all her life led her toward wanting to be a cop, and now that she was, she was cripplingly unable to do her job. If Nick knew a way to get their evidence, protocol be damned, she was going to take it. She took off her badge and set it on the dashboard next to Nick's.

 

He pulled off the street, backing up towards the tunnel back to Savannah Square, except instead of heading back downtown, he took one of the many maintenance access tunnels leading to the outer fringes of the districts. Driving in silence in a dimly lit portion of the tunnel, their destination dawned on her when they breached the exit, the walled, snowy villa coming into view even as the snow grew heavy. She could sense his hesitation to go there, but saw, with her eyes locked on his, a firm determination like she hadn't seen before. This was the Nick that wanted to make a difference. For that brief span of time, she felt like she was transported back in time, twenty-two years ago. She played cop. He played junior ranger scout. They'd both be breaking their oath now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who locked themselves out of their room? I left to get some writing done and completely forgot that I left my key card inside, so, to pass the time, I've been knocking out more of what I've planned so far. We'll see if I can get the next chapter up before my laptop battery power dies.


	6. Big Help

**Chapter V: Big Help**

 

“So, you need information from some rat two years ago, you come to me? Now someone does something stupid on your turf, someone gets killed on _my_ turf, and you can't do your jobs, and you still come to me? Ask me how this is fair? What is an animal supposed to do in these situations, I ask you.”

 

Mr. Big leaned forward from his chair, staring intently into Nick's eyes. He clasped his paws together, demanding an answer.

 

“Well, you see, Mr. Big, it's not that we can't do our jobs so much as there are animals keeping us from doing our jobs. Animals that are very good at their own jobs,” Judy said. Ever since their last encounter, she thought she felt a certain kinsmanship with the crime boss since saving his daughter from a runaway donut. That feeling evaporated as soon as they were searched at the gate to his villa and thrown against the hood of their car. She stood at the position of attention now. “All we need is to know who is tampering with the city's camera systems.”

 

“Please, my dear, you saved my family – my daughter, whom I love, and through her my many grandchildren. For this I owe you thanks. But I ask you, is that debt so great that you come back to me, again and again, not as a friend, but as a master? I ask you. Tell me, am I your lackey?” Mr. Big asked. He spoke in a raspy, monotone voice, expressing himself by leaning back and forth in his chair. The icon of his mother stared at them from the background, daring her to say yes.

 

“No, Mr. Big, absolutely not.”

 

“Then tell me, why should I do this? What does it do for me to help you catch these animals? It's true they violated my honor. They came into my house – my beautiful Tundra Town – and killed an animal without paying grace. This can never be forgiven. But it is a debt that I am owed, not you. So tell me why I should help you? Why do this for you?”

 

Judy loosened up a bit, thinking she could angle her way into the shrew's business mind rather than through his family. “The victim's name was Benjamin Bos, sir – at least, that's who we think it was – and he was an executive at Goldman Yaks. I'm sure there are a lot of people at that company who would be willing to support finding his killer.”

 

“You say these things that mean nothing to me. What should I care what a bank does, when I own the banks? What should I care what a grocer does, when I own the grocers? What should I care what a cop does, when I own the cops?” he said, crossing his arms. “I don't know why you came here and I don't know what you expect of me. You have your roles and I have mine – don't confuse them.”

 

“Mr. Big, I think if we work together to track down-”

 

“I don't need to track down anyone. I know the animals hiding what you seek.”

 

“Mr. Big, please!” Judy said, bringing her hands to her chest and leaning forward toward the desk. Mr. Big leaned back in his chair and looked away, toward the icon of his mother, before making the sign of the cross on his body.

 

“My blessed mother would frown on you coming here. And so do I,” he said, twisting his chair back to face Judy. The rabbit had trusted that Nick and Mr. Big could pull through for her – their – investigation just like the last time. Mr. Big gave the answer.“I think we are finished here.”

 

Panicking and grasping for an angle before it was too late, it was Nick who spoke up this time, careful of his less-than-stellar past with Mr. Big and even more wary of the two polar bears standing behind him. Judy had no such escort. “Sir, if I may add something to what my partner has to say.”

 

“Out of respect for your partner, I will allow this. Speak, fox, and I may listen.”

 

He straightened up, smoothing out his uniform as if making a presentation before the chief, before continuing. “Sir, it's true that, given enough time, you're probably more or less likely to find the killer and bring them to some sort of justice better than us. It's also true that the opinion of a single bank doesn't matter to you. But isn't it also true that all your friends in the business community are serving time in Royal Prison now as a result of those friendships?”

 

“They are good animals. They didn't talk. Nor will they.”

 

“Right, but what I'm getting at here is that those bankers and grocers and cops all locked up aren't the guys from Goldman Yaks or Furizon or ZBC. Your guys are the ones out of the picture right now, and every day that they're in prison is another day that those companies take market share and advantage away from your friends and give it to themselves.”

 

“Get to the point, fox, before I grow tired of you again,” Mr. Big spat.

 

“My point is: Benjamin Bos and his buddies had something to gain from the breakup of the Tundratown Chamber of Commerce.”

 

“Goldman Yaks didn't bring down the chamber, that black cat did. No wonder her kind are bad luck,” Mr. Big said, referring to Mayor Felis. It was a well known saying that once you shine the light of transparency on government, the darker it gets. Mayor Felis's transparency campaign had virtually gutted the old government and business institutions in Zootopia, leaving criminals big and small – from Mr. Big all the way down to Finnick – few friends left in the old centers of power.

 

“And who do you think her largest campaign donors were?” Nick asked, crossing his arms. “I'm not meaning to suggest anything uncouth,” he quickly added, acutely aware of the sharp look that Judy was giving him. “What I am saying is that, you have all these large corporations financing the mayor's campaign, she up and gets rid of your friends in the local chamber of commerce, and now they're free to sweep up whatever profits are left in the wake. And since these are some of the biggest companies in the world, even you can't touch them, right? And so now this murder isn't about whatever it was before, but deliberately dumping the body in Tundra Town is a personal affront to you,” Nick said, splaying his hands in the air to demonstrate his point, orchestrating them with each word.

 

“I mean, it's just a guess, but you had everything in Tundra Town on lockdown. Even I had to stick to the border walls when I was running my popsicle racket. You couldn't buy real estate or start a business without paying dues, and now all of a sudden an entire sector of the city dries up in protection money. I'd be annoyed, too,” Nick said.

 

“How do you know I didn't off the yak myself?” Mr. Big said, leaning forward and grasping the sides of his chair, his gaze drilling directly into Nick's eyes. Judy felt chills through her body just witnessing it – she didn't understand how Nick was keeping his cool.

 

“Because if it was you, you'd have just left him to die of exposure; and there's this,” Nick said, pulling a black card out of his pocket and bringing it down to Mr. Big's level. “A Goldman Yaks system access card. You could rob the wealth of half the country if you had this and a dedicated group of hackers. Whoever killed Mr. Bos wasn't interested in money or revenge, and that rules you out entirely,” Nick crossed her arms as he said this, almost defiant. Mr. Big could dismiss them all he wanted, but even he had to come on board with his analysis.

 

For once, Judy was glad for Nick's wild imagination. She – a she imagined, Mr. Big as well – knew that Nick's explanation was fantastical and borderline insane, but it touched on enough key buttons that it might actually work. She looked over to gauge his reaction, the shrew was unmoving, caught between being at a loss for words and simply annoyed. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Judy, he leaned back back in his chair and crossed his legs, pausing for the briefest of moment before speaking.

 

“Fox, when I said get to the point – that's what I meant. Now you give me a reason,” Mr. Big said, almost baring a smile. Almost. “Nothing happens in Tundra Town that I don't know about, and as it happens, I know who's been messing with your cameras.”

 

“Really?” Judy asked, instantly perking up. She was so excited that she brought her paws to her face and almost jumped into the air. Mr. Big broke out laughing.

 

“I like her, fox. Whenever you see me, it should be with her. But yes, my dear, I know who. I cannot say, not to you – it would be a mark on my honor and my life – but I can tell you that they are animals like me. They are animals you should be afraid of.”

 

“I don't suppose you can give up the killer, too?” Nick asked.

 

“This I do not know. I will find out and I will exact my justice. The price will be paid in full, that I can assure you. But the animals who tampered with your cameras are those who walk the same path I do. They are not to be trifled with, and they will kill you if you keep poking around. The only certain answer I can give to you two is that it was not me or my animals. Our hands are clean in this, by my beloved mother I swear it.”

 

“Animals like you? As in mafia types? But you're the only don in Zootopia,” Judy said, bringing one paw to her jaw, the other wrapping itself around her elbow. “There aren't any other documented criminal cells on a scale like yours until you hit the Meadowlands.”

 

“I never said they were exactly like me, my child, only that they are _like_ me. Now, I must add that if you ask me to go further, I should ask you to leave. I've said more than my part and I grow tired.”

 

Mr. Big clapped his paws together and suddenly both Nick and Judy were picked up by the polar bears in the room, forcibly escorted back to their cruiser, before being set down and politely asked to leave the premises. Judy started driving them back to headquarters while Nick booted up the computer again. It was twilight by the time they left the compound.

 

“Animals like him, huh? What the heck did he mean by that?” Judy asked aloud. She didn't mean to elicit an answer, but Nick gave one anyway.

 

“They're not criminals. At least not crime bosses,” he said. “They're mice.”

 

“How do you figure that?”

 

Nick continued, typing furiously into the computer. “The database gives information exactly like you said in there: Mr. Big is the only known crime boss in the Zootopia region. Hell, he might even be the only crime boss in the entire province. If there's another Family out there, Animal Bureau of Investigations has no idea it exists. So they're not like Mr. Big in that way,” Nick said.

 

“But didn't he say that they'd kill us if we kept investigation?” Judy asked.

 

“Yeah, and look at this,” he said, turning the laptop toward her.

 

“Nick, I'm driving.”

 

Nick scoffed, turning the laptop back toward him before reading aloud, “1985, riots break out in Zootopia over the living conditions in Little Rodentia. In 1990, police and unions clash over pay raises, leaving sixty-three dead. In 1994 – good year, by the way, that was when I left home – the resignation of the first mouse councilor sparks outrage and riots in the city. 2000, unemployed mice hit hard by the dot-com crash march toward city hall and the protest turns deadly.”

 

“You're saying that the tamperers are mice because of a bunch of old news articles telling you that mice are prone to rioting and violence against authority?” she asked, twisting her face. “Didn't you call me out on this exact thing two years ago?”

 

“The only animals who could possibly access those camera poles without being seen are mice. The only animals with proper access are authorized transit authority workers. Tell me, Carrots, which species currently holds a monopoly on virtually every transit project in this city?”

 

“Okay, so our camera tamperers are mice, so what? There are millions of them alone in Savanna Square. That doesn't tell us anything,” she said, getting increasingly annoyed. “Nick, this isn't police work, this is phantom chasing.”

 

“But it does narrow down our search, doesn't it?” he asked. The highway flashed by them as they drove, easily skirting the speed limit. The skyscrapers of downtown Savanna Square illuminating the night sky in an orchestra of light. As she drove, they could see the massive digital billboards of Herd Square displaying various advertisements, before they all cut to shots of Peter Moosebridge from the ZNN newsroom.

 

“I still have no idea where we're going to find a lead if we suspect every mouse in the city. You know that saying how you're never more than ten feet away from a mouse? I can't exactly pull back the wall boards in my apartment and start asking the critters in there, can I?”

 

“Maybe we don't have to be the one's asking the questions,” Nick said, sticking out his arm in front of them toward the glow of the billboards in the distance. They could see the familiar scene of carnage amid a white backdrop on a display next to Moosebridge. “Seems like ZNN is already sniffing around.”

 

Judy alternated between paying attention to the road and listening to Nick. “We can't just head up to the ZNN studio and interrupt their broadcast to ask Peter Moosebridge some questions. They wouldn't give up their sources anyway, even with a court order. That would go nowhere.”

 

“You're right, they wouldn't. But what if we went up there and weren't asking for information, but supplying it?”

 

“Nick, what are you saying?”

 

“I'm saying that if we wanted to place surveillance on any animals, we'd need a warrant. And with our status, we'd just draw more attention to the case, alerting whoever killed Bos to what we were up to. But the media doesn't need a court order – and we'd be able to see what they see on the evening news while we kept investigating elsewhere. Unless ZNN knows what _we're_ up to, they'd just be another contractor or informant, except ZPD gets to keep its money.”

 

“I'm impressed,” Judy said, meaning it. “When did you get so creative?”

 

“It's the hustle, sweetheart,” he said, leaning back into the seat, fiddling for the knob that would let him recline. He turned his head and smiled at her when he found it. “Being creative is the only way you survive.”

 

Judy shook her head and rolled her eyes when she saw Nick recline, kicking his feet on the dashboard and putting his paws behind his head. She doubted his seat belt would save him at that angle in the event of a crash. She let up on the accelerator and slowed down as a result. If his plan went smoothly, they didn't need to be at the ZNN station for another half hour or so. She could afford to play it safe, especially since Nick never wanted to. She could still see his form, and especially his bright, red-orange fur, through the darkness as she entered the blackness of the border tunnel. The constancy of his presence set her at ease. It had been a long day for the both of them – he'd earned his moment of rest.

 

Crossing through the border walls was a strange experience she'd never been able to get over. The walls themselves were massive – they needed to be to allow animals in each of the habitats to survive – but she never noticed them until they got close to one. Entering their tunnels was itself an act that dignified the city, giving her back the magic she thought she'd lost after living in it for so long. After so much darkness, they would emerge on the other side in a completely different biome, with completely different species, all of whom needed their own brand of policing. She couldn't see herself as a single-precinct cop or a single-biome bunny. There simply wasn't enough excitement in that life, but with Nick at her side, serving in ZPD central, she'd be able to keep the entire city safe, meeting all of its inhabitants along the way. That's why she became a cop, to keep that dream alive – the dream of animals of all species and walks of life living in coexistence and harmony: the Zootopian Dream.

 


	7. The Newsroom

Chapter VI: The Newsroom

Judy heard him snoring before long, deciding to pull off the highway to give them some time before ZNN evening news cut for the evening and they could have a chance to speak with him. Taking side streets also led her to the inevitable traffic signal, allowing her some time to take her eyes off the road and look at Nick, occasionally grunting and turning over in his sleep. His ears were pressed against his head and his paws occasionally grasped at something that wasn't there. She reached her paw out to pat his legs, before the light turned green and she was forced to move toward their destination. Perhaps, in her dream to become a police officer and make the world a better place, she'd also added an addendum to make him a better animal, and he her. She relished the thought. 

“You can't change anything without changing yourself first,” she said, smiling at the koan she'd seen on the back of an ice cream cone wrapper that Nick had bought her one time. She pulled into an inconspicuous parking spot next to a bus stop near the ZNN building, letting Nick rest a little more so she could steel herself and collect her thoughts.

If it was necessary to change herself before she changed the world – or even the city for that matter – and if she'd been forced to change herself to work together with Nick to solve the Night Howler Incident, then what was she missing in this case? They'd both been through the academy and had roughly the same amount of experience in policing, but so far, Nick's hunches and attempts at police work had far exceeded her own in terms of producing actual results. Even his outlandish conspiracy theory that he wove (or stole from the internet) for Mr. Big had gotten the crime boss to talk where saving his daughter two years ago hadn't. “What am I missing?” she asked aloud.

“Huh? Are we here already?” Nick asked, raising his sunglasses to rub the sleep out of his eyes, turning the dial on the side of the seat to return it to its upright position. “So you're taking my advice and seeing Moosebridge?”

“Yeah, but I'm wondering how to lead into this. I honestly have no idea where this is going. We're investigating by the seat of our pants.”

“If we knew the answer from the get-go, Carrots, there'd be no need for police. What time is it?”

“Five till. Why?”

“Come on, let's go,” Nick said, taking off his jacket and putting his patrol cap on, stepping out into the mild nighttime air. In front of the ZNN building, there was a group of young wolves and a sheep chatting and smoking cigarettes. Nick led the way. “Hey guys, you wouldn't happen to know if Peter Moosebridge is available for a chat after his program, would you? Me and Officer Hopps here are huge fans.”

“Oh my god, are you Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps!” the sheep said, bringing her hooves up to her face.

“The one and only,” Judy said, beaming. It felt good to be recognized.

“We were thinking of doing a piece on you two today, but the murder story in Tundra Town got the editor's attention,” one of the snow leopards said. He looked them both up and down before speaking again. “You're both a lot smaller than I imagined.”

“Those posters of us make us look bigger than we actually are,” Nick said, bringing his paws behind his head. “So, is Mr. Moosebridge available?”

“Yeah, he should be, especially for you two. You're practically the talk of the station,” the sheep said, taking a deep drag on her cigarette.

Nick and Judy looked over at each, seeming to ask why. The sheep obliged them.

“You two haven't heard yet? The mayor's office has been buzzing about you two for weeks now, but the talk in the staff office blew up after you arrested those two yaks at the train station.”

“Yeah, we actually got called to head the Mammal Inclusion Program just the other day by-” The group of snow leopards looked at each other, letting Judy know something was wrong. “What is it?”

“That's interesting. That's not what we heard.”

“Mind divulging what you heard for us?” Nick asked.

“We can, if we can have a selfie with you two,” one snow leopard offered.

“We're all huge fans. The Night Howler Incident practically launched our careers. We were interns back then at the crime desk – and with you two being the first rabbit and first fox officers and all, it was a pretty explosive story. We had viewers all the way from the Avian Hegemony. You two just have such great cross-species appeal,” the sheep said, taking out her cell phone.

Nick and Judy blushed in unison. They'd never thought of themselves as celebrities before: Gazelle was a celebrity, not them. They were just two cops doing their jobs who happened to be a fox and a rabbit – admittedly old-time natural enemies but now fairly amicable, save for Nick's snoring in the patrol car and Judy's need to hurry everywhere. Nick brought his arm around Judy's waist and waited for the crowd to come around. Smiling and waiting for the picture, they thanked the young ones after they were done, all of them busily uploading their selfies to Furbook 

“So, what was it that you know that we don't?” Judy asked.

“The Mammal Inclusion Program is being killed,” the sheep said.

“Budget cuts,” one of the snow leopards continued. “The mayor's office is digging so deep into the city's coffers that almost everything is on the chopping block.”

“And here I thought those taxes still hurt as much as ever,” Nick said, reaching into his pockets and pulling them empty to drum up sympathy. “What in the world are they spending it on?”

“The MetroTrail expansion is being funded entirely by taxes – no debt. That's a lot of money to be throwing around,” the snow leopard said. “The contractors for the new lines have been charging the government through the roof ever since the election. We've tried to get access to the budgets of the companies involved, but they all seem on the up and up. If you're asking us where the money's going in the end, we have no idea.”

“So why would the mayor ask us to head up a program she was planning to nix anyway?” Judy asked, turning to Nick. It was a good question, but one that would have to be answered another day – the group of staffers led them inside after they'd finished, forcing them away from their conversation.

The bull at the security desk waved them past when they flashed their badges, heading into a separate elevator as the group of staffers. Nick slid to the back of the elevator when the doors closed.

“Never thought I'd be so recognizable,” he said, taking off his cap and brushing the top of his head.

“Well, a fox and a bunny palling around tends to draw attention,” she offered, standing next to him.

“I guess you could call it palling around,” he said, scratching the top of her head. “Guess you could call it being partners.”

They both straightened up as the elevator reached the top floor of the tower where the production studio was located, Mr. Moosebridge ending his live report just as the doors opened.

“And that is your news tonight. I'm Peter Moosebridge, signing off,” the moose said, cool and calm as the lights dimmed around him. They immediately turned back on when filming cut. “Wow, that might have been our heaviest story in years. What did you think, Mike? I keep it cool back there? It's been a while since Sarah's been on to help me air.”

“You did good, Pete. Don't worry about it,” an aging pig said from a seat in front of the desk. He wore a headset, with a green shirt and tie not unlike Nick's outfit from his life as a con-artist. He turned to the elevator when he heard the doors open and was the first to notice Nick and Judy coming into the studio. “Officers, how may we help you today?”

“Good evening, sir, I'm Officer Hopps and this is Officer Wilde from the ZPD, we were hoping to talk to Mr. Moosebridge just now,” Judy said, proffering herself to the pig. He took her paw and looked over at Moosebridge, who looked rather confused.

“Well officers, it would be an honor to talk to both of you. Let's go to the conference room and I'll see what I can do for you,” the moose said, getting up and leading them to a glass room in the center of the floor. There were high-backed executive chairs surrounding an oak conference table, with TV screens covering the only drywall in the room. 

“Mr. Moosebridge, we need your help – yours and ZNN's,” Judy said, holding her paw behind her back, signaling to Nick to let her have this one.

“My help with what? I'm pretty sure you're both aware that you two are the star officers of the force. What could I possibly do to help you? You're helping me out more than not – anything with your names attached is practically a ratings gold mine.”

“Mr. Moosebridge, we're conducting an investigation into the murder of Benjamin Bos – the yak you reported on tonight. We'd like to supply you with information about the case as it's forthcoming, in return, you air what you find unedited.”

“Unedited? I'm not sure I understand, we always edit for-”

“We want you and your crews to go where we can't and air any footage you find of animals tampering with the camera systems around the city,” Nick said. Judy looked back and shot him a glare while he shrugged his shoulders.

“You want me to become ZPD's private intelligence service?” Moosebridge said, crossing his arms and raising his voice. “You want ZNN to effectively spy on animals because you can't get a court order.”

“No, Mr. Moosebridge, we're not asking you to spy on any animals, we're asking you and your news crews to pay particular attention to the tampering of official surveillance devices throughout the city. That same tampering is severely hindering our official investigation,” Judy said, trying to offset Nick's initial attack.

“So you're telling me, a reporter, that you can't do your jobs?”

“No, it's not that, it's that-”

“Yes, we're saying exactly that. ZPD can't focus on the investigation right now because there are some animals in the city interfering with our surveillance. What's more, it appears that they're tampering with witnesses and evidence as well and they're able to hide their tracks as effectively as they're able to commit crimes.”

“So you want me and my news crews to find and publish as much information as we can on whoever is tampering with your investigation, and in return you'll, what, exactly? Give us information we'll already be finding for ourselves?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Nick and Judy looked at each other, Nick smiling while Judy was ready to stomp on his feet. What the hell was he doing?

“I think it's best if you sort this out yourselves before coming back here,” Mr. Moosebridge said, incredulous, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He shook his head and looked Judy in the eyes. “Get the hell out of my newsroom.”

They didn't say a word to each other before reaching the patrol car.

“What the hell was that about, Nick? I thought you wanted to go to Moosebridge! I thought it was your idea to act as informants while the case was ongoing so they could go where we couldn't!” she yelled at him, throwing her patrol cap on the dashboard. “I don't believe you! I looked like an ass in there! No, you looked like an ass!”

“Judy, calm down-”

“Don't tell me to calm down! What was that, Nick? What was that?” she was still yelling, her eyes welling up as she looked at the steering wheel, averting his face. “You made me look like an idiot in there.”

Nick took a deep breath, “actually, I think it went over perfectly. Any more pushing and Moosebridge would've become uncooperative.”

“You call him telling me to get the hell out of his office not uncooperative?” Judy asked, still refusing to face him.

“I call it the first step in the process. Visiting Moosebridge wasn't so much about getting him to be on our side so much as it was to plant it in his head that that's what we want him to do. He already aired the murder story tonight, and you heard the staffers outside – they were already planning a story on us. Now, they'll be able to run the two together using the information we just gave him. If ZNN connects the dots, or if Moosebridge's report reached enough animals, we might be able to pin down who is tampering with our evidence and from where.”

“How is that possibly going to work out for us?” she asked sarcastically. She normally tolerated Nick's borderline excessive creativity when it came to investigations. Tonight, her patience wore out. 

“Because, my little bundle of rage, there's only two outcomes here: either they don't act on our information, in which case the stories air anyway and we're no worse off than we started, or they do act on our information and they start identifying which pieces of the camera network have been affected. Locate enough cameras and we can start identifying patterns based on the residual traffic and population data. Locate enough patterns and we've got a suspect.”

Judy cursed him under her breath. “Was making me look like an idiot your plan for the night, then?”

“Judy,” Nick said, placing a paw on her shoulder, which she struggled to shake off, before giving up. “I actually went in there expecting to say something completely different, but our conversation with the staffers and their upcoming story on us gave me an idea just as we stepped onto the floor. I was thinking about it too hard. I'm sorry – you know how I get,” he said, bowing his head to her. She looked over and saw that his tail was tucked in towards his body and his ears pressed against his head. He was legitimately sorry. She scratched his head.

“What's the plan now?” she asked, starting the car and wiping the wetness from her eyes. 

“We head back to the station and see what we can glean from there. Let's see if the chief got any more information on Mr. Bos.”

“Good idea.”

“Oh, I'm full of them!” Nick chided, earning him another glare from the rabbit, forcing his paws up in apology. “Come on, Carrots, I didn't mean to step on you back there. I'm just trying to do what's right.”

“I know,” she said, almost too low for him to hear. She turned out of their parking spot, making an illegal U-turn onto Ecology Avenue before continuing. “But your hunches and work have gotten us this far in. I'm still trying to figure out how I can help put the pieces together.”

Nick didn't have to have advanced vision to see that she was hurting. Nor did he have to be close to her to sense her frustration. He knew exactly how much this job meant to her – if risking her life once wasn't enough to deter her from bringing down criminals, nothing would. Still, he also knew how damning it was to want something so bad and be denied everything. 

“You know neither of us would be able to do this alone. I'm quick on my feet and you lift me up when I trip over myself. Quite literally from the crime scene earlier today,” he said, reaching his paw out to lay it on her shoulder. “Besides, if we ever get in deep trouble like we did during our last big case, we'll need those award winning acting skills of yours again.”

“Award winning, huh? I like to think that I shared the stage with a more than capable actor himself,” Judy said, winking at him. He let out a short laugh, settling back into the seat and staring out the window. From downtown, it wasn't much of a drive to ZPD headquarters.

When they reached the central precinct garage, Francine – the lone female elephant in their precinct – was in the guard booth. She immediately got out when they reached the gate.

“Where the hell have you two been!” she yelled, prompting Judy to roll down the windows.

“Why? What's wrong?”

“Chief's been looking for you for the better part of the day! Clawhauser radioed you throughout the day but you didn't respond – even your transponder wasn't pinging. The entire precinct's been on alert for you two for the better part of the night!”

Judy looked over at Nick, scowling, who in turn looked down at the transponder and radio in the center console of the car. In their drive away from Mr. Big's villa, Nick had been so focused on looking up articles on mice that he'd forgotten to turn either of them back on. Judy gave a sheepish smile to Francine as Nick put his paws over his eyes.

“Oh crap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the previous one were originally planned as a single work. It was around the tenth page of the manuscript that I decided that having three separate scenes in a single chapter would've been much too much and broken the flow and pace of the story, alongside abandoning particularly promising points to end the chapter and begin from a fresh perspective. In the original outline, this chapter included an additional scene which I've since decided to write as the next chapter. Consider this chapter the end of the first act of the story. Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed so far and continue to enjoy.


	8. The Major Case Squad

Chapter VII: The Major Case Squad

Judy and Nick stood in front of the doorway to their new office, holding boxes filled with their personal belongings and old case files. It was a locked room in the basement that reeked of musk and whiskey. Faded lettering on the frosted glass door indicated that this was once the home of the Major Case Squad. Hearing a strange noise, Judy looked to her left to see steam intermittently gushing from a rusted cast iron pipe that ran along the ceiling. Rich, a lion who was Officer Clawhauser's night shift replacement, fumbled with the keys to let them inside. 

“Clawhauser really pulled through for you guys – tried stalling on the dispatch radio as long as he could, but his shift came up and well, with the budget being what it is, his overtime request wasn't granted,” Rich said, giving them a look that crossed between sympathy and pity. “I did what I could, but when chief got that call half an hour ago and couldn't reach you two, it was either shut him down or tell him that you went off the grid, and I've got cubs to feed.” 

“Well, we appreciate it, really,” Judy said. As Rich unlocked the door to their office, she noticed two things: first, everything seemed to have been abandoned before she was even born. She could see that several of the desks had a thick layer of dusk and decay on them, several of them rusted to the floor. The second thing she noticed was the ball of colorful, spotted fur in the corner, passed out on the desk. Officer Onca.

“He was found drunk on duty again, but instead of throwing him off the force, chief decided to assign him to Major Cases. He can't do much harm down here. I'm sorry you two had to be reassigned like this,” Rich said, lowering his head. “Anyway, I've got to get back to dispatch. It's going to be reporting time soon and if officers don't report in like you two did I think chief might just explode. My condolences once again.”

The lion skulked down the hallway and back upstairs, leaving Nick and Judy to set their things down on one of the ragged tables in the center of the room. Officer Onca snorted from the corner. 

“Well, this sucks,” Nick said, leaning against one of the tables and glancing around. He didn't even know that ZPD had a Major Case Squad – let alone that it would be such a decrepit pit. Judy looked equally dismayed. This was the price they paid for their indifference to orthodoxy, she'd learned. 

When they'd gotten back to the station nearly an hour before, Chief Bogo had summoned them to his office, furious. He'd been willing to let his star officers slide if their only transgression was missing check-ins with dispatch. Turning off their transponder would earn them a slap on the wrist, given their stellar records and service to the city. Talking to a reporter about a pending investigation and trying to get ZNN to conduct surveillance on ZPD's behalf – that sent the chief into a fit of primal rage. They'd seen the holes the chief had made in his office walls as proof positive. 

Peter Moosebridge and the chief, as it so happened, were classmates in college and still kept up with one another, to the extent that, after Judy and Nick had left the ZNN production studio that evening, the news anchor called his old friend as a courtesy to let him know that two of his officers had just spoken to him on “sensitive matters relating to the murder case.” Tracking every deployed pair of assets he had, the chief had narrowed down the field of possible officers to just two: the only ones whose radio and cruiser transponder weren't responding. Without direct evidence of wrongdoing, the chief couldn't officially sanction them, but he could make their lives a waking hell, and he had with this assignment. 

No resources. No office. Nothing. They were tasked with solving the murder of Benjamin Bos, and, if they were lucky, could get away with ceremonial duties for the rest of their time at the central precinct. For as long as Chief Bogo was head of the city's police force, their careers were over. Unfortunately, the chief had made it very clear that he intended on remaining a cop until the day he died. 

Judy joined Nick, leaning on the desk and pulling out a folder of the latest summary report assembled by some of the junior officers in their division. It was stamped confidential, though it wasn't very thick – only a few pages littered its contents, mostly from officers at the scene.

“We're not going to get anywhere sulking about this,” Judy chided him, handing half of the papers to Nick for him to go through. He grudgingly took them, his eyes betraying his exhaustion. 

“I'm sorry about this, Carrots. I guess I made some,” he paused for a moment, looking for the right words. “Some miscalculations.”

“Foxes aren't as good at those as bunnies, it seems,” Judy said, looking up at him. She hadn't noticed earlier, but there was something else his body was betraying as well: the way his ears twitched downward every time she spoke and the way his tail curled back around his legs told her that it was regret. She reached a paw around his waist, forcing him to look down at her. “Do you remember what I said during my speech at your graduation ceremony?” she asked.

“Something about how great foxes are,” Nick said.

“Life's a little bit messy and we all make mistakes, but they're all steps in the road of life. I don't think I'd be the same cop I am now if I hadn't, you know, almost incited a riot two years ago,” Judy said, leaning on him. They both slunk their bodies down from the desk onto the floor, looking between case files and each other. The photographs of Mr. Bos's stab wounds sitting in front of them.

“Yeah, well, seems neither of us learned about talking to the media after two years ago. I should've known better than to go to ZNN.”

“Hey, I drove us there – you took a nap the entire way there!” Judy said, elbowing him in the ribs. He shot back and suppressed a cough, giggling through it and looking up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I could use a nap right now, actually,” Nick said, stretching his arms and yawning. How this fox got anything done was anyone's wonder. Judy rolled her eyes and grabbed his case files off of his lap.

“You go to sleep. I'll review the files and make sure we're ready to go in the morning,” Judy said.

“Thanks, Carrots,” Nick said, sleepily. He spread himself out on the floor, laying his head on Judy's lap, earning her protest. She was about to say something, but quickly heard snores coming from him. It was a wonder of the natural world how he could fall asleep so quickly. She shook her head and continued looking at the files. What was it they were missing?

A search of the Zootopian civil records system had apparently confirmed that the murdered yak was Benjamin Bos, senior vice president for non-traditional species credit management at Goldman Yaks. Judy looked over the pages held within his official citizen files – something there would give her the answers she'd need, she was sure of it. 

Mr. Bos's credit agency had provided a receipt of his purchases over the last five years. Nothing too surprising – travel to other nations, which was often re-credited to Goldman Yaks, indicating business travel as a senior executive for the company. A new car, expensive restaurants, and more money spent on clothing in a month than Judy earned in a year. It wasn't until Judy reached his purchases two and a half years ago that she noticed odd patterns emerging. The yak was an executive whose specialty focused on non-traditional species, but his credit statements indicated almost daily train travel to and from the Meadowlands – a province almost entirely inhabited by sheep. 

“That's strange,” Judy said, turning the page. “All this travel to the Meadowlands and none of it reimbursed, meaning it was personal? But this was all two and a half years ago, I doubt it's relevant to why this yak got killed,” she said to herself, turning the pages. There were photocopies of all the documents in his wallet: the employee ID card that had allowed them to know his name at the crime scene, his credit cards, and a valued customer for a local pancake shop. Judy looked at the page bearing a photocopy of his business card:

“BENJAMIN K. BOS – GOLDMAN YAKS  
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR NON-TRADITIONAL ANIMAL CREDIT”

She already knew that. This was going nowhere. As she turned the page, she saw two other business card copies in the folder. 

“LEONARD C. BOS – GENERAL DIRECTOR  
BELLWEATHER '07”

“PETER HARE – CEO AND PRESIDENT  
ALL MAMMAL CREDIT UNION, ZOOTOPIA BRANCH”

“Now we're getting somewhere,” she said, seeing Nick's ears twitch when she spoke. Either he was a light sleeper or his ears naturally twitched when he heard her voice. Rubbing them with one paw, she got out her smart phone and began searching Poogle for answers. Leonard Bos, as it turned out, was Benjamin Bos's brother. He was also Assistant Mayor Bellweather's campaign director for her run for mayor nine years ago, shortly before she lost the nomination to Mayor Lionheart and was tapped as his running mate. A search for the cached campaign page yielded a virtual who's who of powerful prey animals throughout the city. She didn't turn up any results for his whereabouts after the election, but it was a start.

Mr. Hare, she already knew, was a rabbit like herself. Searching the All Mammal Credit Union, she found the bank's only branch in Zootopia was in Sahara Square, on the ground floor of the Twenty-Nine Palms Tower and Hotel, the tallest building in the district. It was prime real estate for a small-time credit union. Hare, she discovered, was practically a nobody. A search on social media turned up pictures of company picnics, with a herd of small animals surrounding a middle-aged rabbit wearing a sweater vest. She understood the connection between the brothers, but why was this random rabbit's business card in the victim's wallet? Why would a senior executive at one of the biggest banks in the country be in contact with some small-time community lender? Both of them were solid leads, but the rabbit connection was the more puzzling of the two. 

Whatever it was, they'd have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Glancing at her phone, she saw that it was almost a half past midnight. It wasn't as if she could wake Nick up right now to go knock down the door of the credit union. No. She closed the case files and looked up at the ceiling. They'd go in the morning, when they were both refreshed, ready to solve this case and absolve themselves before the chief. Whoever killed Mr. Bos was personally linked to him, she was sure of it – unless another gruesome stabbing came up, this wouldn't be the work of a random killer. Leonard Bos and Peter Hare had the answers she sought. Now, she just needed to find them. She took another look at Nick sleeping on her lap, his tail curled inward. Brushing it with her paws, she wandered into her thoughts.

She was a real cop working a real case now. She needed to produce real results to get them out of the hole. All it would take was one good suspect – one person who knew what was going on behind the veil. They needed to go beyond the wire, and the sooner, the better. Her mind continued to churn the evidence as sleep took her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a weird chapter to write. The last two chapters covered two scenes that I'd planned out in advance to be a three-scene chapter, but the last scene was so small that I had to scrap it altogether and build a new pathway into the scene in the next chapter, which should play out as planned. Once again, thank you for reading!


	9. Twentynine Palms

Chapter VIII: Twentynine Palms

Nick had woken up first, looking at the rabbit passed out next to him with dark bags under her eyes. He got up as silently as he could and walked upstairs to get them some coffee. He didn't know what time it was, but Clawhauser was sitting firmly at his desk, munching away at a box of donut holes. He waved over to Nick, beckoning him over; this he obliged, if only to see what he could glean from the cat. 

“Morning, Wilde! It's such a shame that you two got reassigned to the basement. Lucky for you, I heard and on my way to work today,” Clawhauser paused to reach under his desk, grabbing two smoothies and putting them on the counter. “I picked up some smoothies for you two. I know it's not much but I hope it helps. I said to myself when Rich told me, I said 'gosh, those two just can't get a break', so I thought this might cheer you up!”

Nick looked at the smoothies on the counter: blueberry and carrot flavored. He smiled, taking them in his paws and leaning over the desk. “Thanks, big guy. You're a great help around here.”

“Oh it's no problem! You two have been keeping morale up here through the budgets cuts. I figured you needed someone to look out for you once in a while,” Clawhauser said, leaning his head on his paws, closing his eyes and offering Nick a toothy smile.

“Keeping morale up? Us?” Nick asked, confused. They'd be out of the station more often than not lately, hadn't produced much in the way of their murder investigation, and now were being unofficially reprimanded. How were they the pillars of morale?”

“You two are always so earnest and eager! And Judy, ah! What a little bundle of energy, she is. I know it's wrong to stereotype but we really lucked out with having a bunny here, you know? I don't think anyone in the precinct could keep up with these double shifts if she wasn't so energetic. And you, too, Nick! You're the cool, calm one and she's the bouncy, fun one. It's like watching one of my shows,” Clawhauser said, pining for a high five from the fox, who reluctantly returned it. “We know you've got our backs, so everyone does their best to have yours.”

“Thanks, Claws – I'll be sure to tell Judy that. In fact, I'll tell her right after I give her one of these,” Nick said, pointing to the smoothies. He picked them up and nodded to Clawhauser, who waved him off, eagerly putting headphones back into his ears – Nick could hear Gazelle's new album blasting from them even as he rounded the corner to the stairs.

When he got back to their basement office, Judy was just waking up, albeit groggy from being propped up on a desk for the night. He handed her the carrot smoothie, keeping the blueberry for himself, patting her head as she took it from him and gave her thanks. He let her take a few sips before he spoke.

“So – you're the boss – what's the plan for today?” Nick asked.

“Well, as it so happens,” Judy said, reaching into he pocket to get her smart phone. “While you were asleep, I was still going over case files. Apparently our victim had some business cards in his wallet. One belonged to his brother who appears to be a local political organizer and the other belonged to the CEO of a small credit union that focuses on mammal communities. It's headquartered over in Sahara Square.”

Nick looked at her, puzzled. Tilting his head to the side, he spoke to her in that voice that told her he had no idea what was going on. “Why would our victim have the business card to some random small-time credit junkie?”

“That's exactly what I wanted to know. The credit union should be open today, so I wanted to head down there and ask the guy some questions. He's a rabbit, like me – a Mr. Peter Hare.”

“Think it'll turn up something useful?”

“It might, but it's a more solid lead than the business card from his brother. His brother worked on assistant mayor Bellweather's original campaign for mayor nine years ago, but his digital profile ends after that. I couldn't find anything else on the guy.”

“And we're not likely to get his citizenship records without official approval, either, which means dealing with the chief. And until we get some solid evidence that talking to the brother will give us something-”

“Right. Going to the credit union is our best bet,” Judy said, standing up. “Thanks for the smoothie, by the way. Where'd you get it?”

“Clawhauser gave it to me. He said we're the bedrock of the precinct's morale – whatever that means,” Nick said, placing his paws behind his head, scratching his ears. “I don't know how; could be the fox and bunny thing. I think they think it's cute.”

Judy rolled her eyes at him, smacking him on the arm. “I think it's pretty cool. Come on, finish that up and let's roll. We've got work to do.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Nick said, coolly; the latter word rolled off his tongue elongated, stretching his out as if to annoy her. She turned around and scowled. He returned a smile. 

Thankfully, there was a tunnel between the basement offices and maintenance areas and the garage. It was just as uncomfortable as the rest of the basement – leaking steam pipes and calcium stains dotted the place – but it was far better than going upstairs and facing the glances and gossip of the rest of the precinct. Despite being the “bedrock” of the precinct's morale, they were still high-profile coworkers, and any officers not in-the-know would surely want to question them on their reassignment to the Major Case Squad and what it entailed. Judy didn't want to go through the ritual of telling her friends that it was actually the end of her career.

They found their cruiser and got ready to go – Nick remembering to turn on the car's radio and transponder before they left. He reached into the glove compartment and began a pre-patrol checklist before they pulled out of their spot. It wasn't something most officers did, and most stopped conducting it shortly after graduating the academy, but given how thin the line was between them and “unpaid administrative leave”, Nick was overcome with an abundance of caution. He called their movements and plans down to the most minute detail, giving Clawhauser a miniature report that no doubt the cheetah was scrambling to type into his computer. 

“Be safe out there, you two!” Clawhauser said over the radio.

“Thanks, Spots. Unit 07-11, rolling out.”

Judy turned onto the main avenue before turning right onto the Zootopia Beltway – an inner city highway offering a circular route around the city. Outbound traffic moved quickly, and they were soon able to get to the border wall between Savanna and Sahara Squares – the border tunnel being wholly illuminated by the headlights of cars stuck in gridlock heading in the other direction.

“You know, it's times like these that I'm really grateful that I've never lived in the outer boroughs,” Nick said, looking at the kilometers-long line of traffic that only seemed to grow. “Commuting must suck.”

“Eh, it's not too bad. Then again, I take the bus every day,” Judy said. “They're even bringing the MetroTrail next to my apartment – they're building a whole new station.”

“They're building dozens of them. I guess that's where all the city's money keep going. Wish they wouldn't put us on extra duty while building a whole new subway system, though,” Nick said, griping. He kicked his feet up onto the dashboard, as was his custom, looking out the window and watching the light at the end of the tunnel grow brighter. Soon, they emerged into the light of day, surrounded by stucco houses and gently sloping terra cotta roofs, each building getting higher and higher until there was nothing but a massive plaza with a gigantic tower in the middle: Twentynine Palms. 

The hotel and casino had been built before either of them were born and was easily the tallest building in the world at the time. Offering stellar views of the city and surrounding countryside, it could be seen from atop some of the hills as far away as Bunnyburrow. It served as the cultural and economic heart of Sahara Square and a monument to the engineering prowess of Zootopia. With famous bands selling out concerts there every night, it was also the recreational hub of the district, offering its citizens a place to cool off and relax after a hard day's work in the desert heat. 

Judy had heard rumors that a single night's stay on the top floor of the hotel cost more than both of their salaries combined. She never dreamed of staying in the palace of opulence, though – her apartment, though it could be roomier and better insulated – suit her just fine. They stopped at a traffic light, stretching their necks toward the windshield, looking up at the gargantuan behemoth when the dispatch radio lit up with traffic. Nick instantly took his legs off the console and picked up the radio.

“This is Unit 07-11, calling dispatch, break break break,” sounding off the code to clear all traffic off the radio channels. The endless chatter ceased and he spoke again. “Dispatch, repeat the message, please – we couldn't hear over the crowding on the channel.”

Clawhauser seemed panicked, his voice in a high pitch, almost at a whine. “Bank robbery in progress at the All Mammal Credit Union, ground floor of Twentynine Palms in Sahara Square. Suspect is armed and has taken hostages. All units in the Sahara District report to the scene.”

“This is Unit 09-01, we're stuck in the tunnel.”

“Unit 09-77, responding. We're at the northern border wall. Should be there in twenty minutes.”

Nick instinctively turned on their cruiser's emergency lights and siren before Judy could react, pressing the broadcast button on the radio. “This is Unit 07-11, we're two blocks away from the scene. We'll be there in a minute.”

“Reports indicate there's only one assailant on scene, but be careful you guys,” Clawhauser said. “All units, Unit 07-11 has the lead. They're the reporting authority. Please notify them when you're close.”

Judy sped past the stop light, flooring it until they reached the plaza. Jumping the curb, she parked the car behind some planters – they offered little cover, but they would give extra protection in the event of a standoff. She popped the trunk of the car, grabbing her air-powered tranquilizer pistol from the center console. Nick got out and rushed to the back of the car, grabbing two ballistic vests and a long-barreled rifle that was as long as Judy was tall. She joined him after a moment of surveying the bank, strapping on her vest while Nick loaded the rifle, placing it on safe.

“You know, before prey and predator signed the treaty and started living in harmony, they called these things hunting rifles,” Nick said, pointing it in the direction of the credit union. “Just a fun fact of history for you.”

“Yeah, well I'd like to solve this standoff without bloodshed, thank you. Just make sure you've got my back.”

“I got you.”

“And don't shoot me by accident.”

“I'll try not to, Carrots. Now hop along, I've got the front covered. Go see if you can find anything near another entrance – see if we can flank this guy.”

“Got it,” Judy said, sprinting toward the tower. The blinds were closed in the credit union, but she saw that they left room for a smidgen of room on the bottom, where the glass met the floor. She slid down next to the building and peeked under the centimeter wide space.

Inside the bank, she saw dozens of terrified customers and employees, each with their paws and hooves on their heads. One animal, a cow, was crying – a calf clung to her arms as she heard shouting from the other side. There were harried rabbits stuffing money from the counter into a duffle bag and a tall, lanky animal wearing a white wife-beater pacing around the room with what looked like a pistol. 

“Come on, come on! I don't have all day! You rabbits are supposed to be fast!” the animal shouted. He looked familiar to her. Had she arrested him before?

The solitary animal who wasn't kneeling, crying, or putting money into the bag was a skinny rabbit who stood in the corner of the main room; his sweater vest, horn-rimmed glasses, and aged appearance betraying that this was Peter Hare. His paws were raised, as if to calm the gunman or protect himself, and he spoke in a measured tone, easily off-put by the violence.

“Sir, we're going as fast as we can. Rabbits don't work well under pressure, you know,” he said, playing to an old stereotype of rabbits as overactive and panicky to play to the gunman.

“Why the hell do they put you in charge of money, then! Jeez, every time I work with rabbits, something goes wrong. You should've just stayed in the countryside, growing carrots. Is that all of it?” the gunman asked as the rabbits behind the counter assembled behind Mr. Hare – or cowered, judging by the way a few of them clung behind their boss.

“Yes sir, this is a small, community bank. We don't have piles of money lying about. You're taking everything we have,” Mr. Hare said, his paws still raised.

“Good. Maybe that'll teach you to take what's best for you next time and listen to some good advice when it comes to you. This is just business, pal. Be thankful this visit didn't come when things get serious and mammals are expected to get down and dirty,” the gunman said. He picked up the duffle bag and walked in front of the crowd of hostages, addressing them directly. “Remember, folks, this is what happens when you bank with idiots. This is your fault, really. Next time, trust your money to someone who actually invests in mammals instead of just taking their hard earned money.”

Judy couldn't help but shake her head. This animal was quite the talker – and didn't seem to have a sense of irony. 

“I'm out!” the gunman said, taking the money and running toward the back of the bank. Judy got the headset from her shoulder and called Nick.

“Nick, the gunman's leaving through the back! Secure the bank and the hostages! I'm giving chase!”

“Judy, wait for back-up!”

“The time is now, Nick! I'm not letting this guy get away!” she said, screaming into the receiver before bolting around the edge of the building. She saw an unmarked steel door and ducked behind a planter, waiting. 

The crash of the door, though it was anticipated, startled her, and she saw the gunman survey the area before running outside. Judy popped up from the planter and shouted at him. “Stop! This is Officer Judy Hopps of the ZPD! You're under arrest!”

The animal turned around, looking at her pointing her tranquilizer pistol at him, his mouth falling open when he saw her.

“Oh no, not you again. Get lost rabbit!” he shouted, bringing his pistol to bear. She fired the tranquilizer dart, but her aim and distance weren't aligned. It went right through his legs. She ducked behind the planter as the gunman fired several rounds toward her, one of which struck the planter, blowing concrete off of it into fine particles of dust. Her heart was racing as she reloaded her tranquilize dart.

“This is just business, rabbit! You don't gotta die over this!” he shouted, sprinting off.

She peeked around the edge of the planter and saw him running towards a MetroTrail expansion access tunnel and gave pursuit. Her heels hitting the pavement as hard as she ran, keeping her distance to allow her to duck behind a planter in case he fired off rounds in her direction. Given that this was Sahara Square, maybe she could try something novel. She hoped her idea worked.

As the gunman made a bee-line toward the access tunnel, she diverted, running towards the avenue that ran along the perimeter of the central plaza. Jumping onto the hood of a nearby parked car, she ran up onto the roof and continued jumping roof to hood – each car gradually getting larger as parking zone shifted. She popped the tranquilizer dart out of her pistol as she neared a giraffe-sized car, jumping off of the roof of an SUV and pointing the pistol toward the ground and pulling the trigger. The pressurized air inside the pistol, combined with her small size, gave her the slightest vertical edge during her jump, allowing her to grab the roof of the car without having to resort to any wall-jumping antics. As the gunman neared the tunnel, Judy was now several meters in the air, easily jumping from the roof of the giraffe-sized car to a nearby traffic pole. Reloading a dart into her pistol, she ran along the pole and jumped to a pole on the other side, catching hold of a hanging traffic light and using it to propel her to the top of the silver rod holding it in place. Running and building her speed, she ran along the pole until she was just over the edge of the construction site, diving off the edge of the pole into the pit below.

She landed with a thud on top of the gunman, placing her tranquilize pistol to his neck, she shouted at him, her voice reaching a high-pitched shrill. “Drop your pistol or this dart goes into your jugular! Drop it now!” 

The gunman let go of the pistol, which Judy swatted away with her free paw. She reached into her belt to put him in handcuffs.

“At least it's not a donut this time, eh rabbit?” the gunman said, turning his face toward her. Now she remembered where she'd seen this animal before: Duke Weaselton, part-time con artist and professional criminal contractor. 

“Duke Weaselton, I'm placing you under arrest for grand larceny, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and disobeying a lawful order from a police officer. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford one, one will be appointed for you at no cost. You have the right to prey or predator specific holding cells. Do you understand these rights as I've recited them to you?”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” the weasel said, burying his face in the dirt. “Why'd it have to be you?”

Judy could hear radio traffic on her personal radio. She decided this was a good time to call it in.

“Officer Judy Hopps, reporting in. One suspect in custody in Sahara Square. Need assistance in securing the scene and taking the suspect to booking.”

“Roger, Officer Hopps. This is Unit 09-77, turning the corner on the avenue. Should be seeing us in a moment.”

Judy responded in the affirmative, letting out a deep sigh and catching her breath. It was only just now that she noticed the cacophony of sirens rapidly approaching, the din of the city replaced by the constant wail of an entire precinct converging on one spot. She heard a familiar, comforting voice come from behind her. 

“Judy, thank God you're alright,” Nick said, rushing to her and hugging her from behind, barely registering that he was stepping on the weasel below her.

“Ow! Ow ow ow! Get off me!” Weaselton cried. The duo seemed to ignore him.

“Why are you here, Nick? What about the-”

“The hostages are safe. I got some private security company that was guarding Twentynine Palms to secure the scene after I took a headcount of them. I needed to make sure you were alright,” Nick said.

Judy blushed while looking at him, forcing Nick to avert his eyes and look off into the air. “To make sure my partner was okay, of course. I can't do this cop thing alone. Doesn't suit my style,” he said, putting his paw on her head. “Pretty impressive work, though.”

Judy nodded, sitting back to get off of the weasel and letting herself sink into the soft dirt in the construction pit. She listened to the sirens grow louder and felt Nick scratch her head, just behind her ears. Taking in a deep breath, she looked up at the sky. This was what she'd been looking for when she joined the force: her first murder case with a good lead capstoned by stopping a bank robbery. If they could get Mr. Hare to explain what happened to Mr. Bos, it would all be over soon.


	10. He Can (Not) Weasel Out of This

Chapter IX: He Can (Not) Weasel Out of This

The central plaza was lit in flashing red and blue lights, with the occasional dash of amber as firefighters and medical workers evacuated the Twentynine Palms Tower and Hotel of guests and patrons. They were hardly pleased, offering the emergency workers sharp glances. The guests who were more imbibed had taken to swinging paws and claws at firefighters, leading the police to arrest a fair bit more animals than they'd originally been called to handle. The Sahara Ninth Precinct was keeping pace as best it could, but had to call for reinforcements from surrounding precincts to keep the peace. Police officers were lost among crowds of citizens, indistinguishable from the throngs leaving the tower's base. The scene could best be described as organized chaos, as news helicopters hovered overhead, offering viewers at home uninterrupted views of the panic, reinforcing a certain view that the city was in disarray and the police force was rapidly becoming overwhelmed amid a shrinking budget and growing population.

Amid the clutter of the plaza, Nick and Judy sat in slightly uncomfortable plastic chairs in Peter Hare's office inside the All Mammal Credit Union. The bank's employees loitered in the lobby, their ears erect and steady, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation taking place inside. 

“Mr. Hare, does the name 'Benjamin Bos' sound familiar to you?” Judy asked, taking out her notebook and carrot pen. She could see Nick's foot tapping the floor rapidly in thinly veiled anxiety. The entire day had been nerve-wracking for all of them, most of all for Mr. Hare and his employees, but they couldn't afford to lose any more time on this case. Each second passed was a second that Mr. Bos's killers weren't brought to justice.

“Bos? Yeah, I do remember him coming by a few weeks ago. Tall-ish yak? Prim and proper suit?”

“Yes, sir. Could you positively identify him for us?” Judy asked, holding out a sheet of paper with the pictures of six different yaks on it. When Mr. Hare pointed out Benjamin Bos from the rest, she suspected that she'd been right in pursuing this lead after all.

“Can you tell us what he came here for? It certainly wasn't to open up an account.”

“He actually came in and wanted to buy us out,” Mr. Hare said, placing his paws in the air and shrugging. “He said that Goldman Yaks would purchase the credit union for two and a half dollars for every dollar in assets held, but I said no.”

“Why did you turn him down? I'm sure your customers would have been thrilled to have that kind of pay off,” Nick said, taking out a notebook of his own. Being a con-artist almost his entire life, his interest was instantly piqued whenever money came up, especially when real money started to get tossed around.

“We're one of the only credit unions in the country that offers comprehensive financial services to non-traditional species. Despite our name, All Mammal Credit Union serves non-mammals as well. Our name is a holdover from the days when predators used to be discriminated against in financial affairs as well. When a lion or an otter got denied a bank account from one of the bigger banks, they'd come to us and we'd grant the request with a minor account upkeep fee.”

“Is that the business model you follow today?” Nick asked.

“Yes, it's a blanket policy. We serve rabbits, lions, lizards, birds – every animal, all for a small fee. Our non-mammal customers are grateful for a chance to open a bank account and our mammalian customers put up with the increased fees because we pay up to double the amount of interest for most standard account holders.”

“So you turned down the offer because-” Nick barely said before he was cut off.

“Because it would've absolutely crushed the financial prospects of a lot of our non-mammal customers. I'm very proud in the business I run. Very proud of the business my father ran and his father ran. It's not explicitly illegal to deny an account solely on species, but there's no consumer protection either. I turned down the offer because I thought it was in the best interest of our clients,” Mr. Hare said, putting his paws on his desk and crossing his fingers, waxing wisdom and professionalism.

“Do you think today's robbery attempt had anything to do with your refusal of the buy-out offer?” Judy asked.

“The robbery? No. No, not at all. Mr. Bos was very courteous and professional. Listen, we're both bankers, these deals happen all the time. I've been approached by a number of big banks over my career and I've always told them the same thing.”

“But the robber said something to you about 'not listening',” Judy said, pressing further. “He said this was your fault for not listening.”

“Ah, that.” Mr. Hare said, leaning back in his chair, turning around to show them its back. She could tell from the position of his ears that he was looking at one of the many photographs hanging on the wall. Company picnics surrounded by colleagues and friends; Mr. Hare shaking hands with a bald eagle, both regaled in ready-to-wear suits; and Mr. Hare wearing khakis and a polo shirt, posing with a group of snakes and alligators. Quite the adventurer.

“Because of our client base, we often get targeted by mammal-supremacist groups every now and then. Last month we were hit by a DDoS attack that shut down our company's public website for several hours, but it didn't affect our customer's credit transactions, thank God. We've had bricks thrown through windows and assaults on our workers at other branches. In Meadowlands, Pasture Fields, Old Rodentia, you name a city a AMCU branch in it and there's more likely been an attack than not. Thankfully, this is the first time the Zootopia branch has seen any kind of violence.”

“So, did an animal approach you before this telling you to stop doing business with non-mammals?” Nick asked, furiously taking down notes, his ears betraying his full attention. It was odd to see Nick so invested in a case.

“We get hate mail on a regular basis, Officer Wilde. I suppose the robber was referring to one of the many hateful letters we receive and forward to the city's Center for Information Security. If you get in touch with them, I'm sure you'll probably find the most recent hate-mail that he was referring to.” Mr. Hare said. He turned back to them, looking resigned, his head down and looking at a photo of his family sitting on the desk.

“Quite honestly, I don't know why you people don't track these guys down and arrest them before they target my banks and employees. We're a target every day.”

“It's not illegal to send hate-mail, sir,” Judy said, disgusted at how matter-of-factly she reported the obvious to him. He'd debased himself and sought to reassure Duke Weaselton that the only reason his rabbits were taking so long was because of their incompetence under pressure, throwing away several centuries of rabbit progress to lean on old stereotypes so that his employees could have a chance at living through the day. She wished things were different. She cursed the fact that she couldn't hold a hunting rifle herself and assault the bank with Nick instead of waiting for the weasel to make a run for it, but the job came with its responsibilities – and she came with her capabilities.

Mr. Hare sighed and mouthed “I know” before looking at Nick for some sort of sympathy. The fox shrugged his shoulders and motioned toward his partner.

“She's right, sir. Until these weirdos actually attack you, there's nothing the ZPD can do. You can file for mail screening from the Royal Post due to harassment, but otherwise, they're not violating any laws,” Nick said. He tapped his notebook a little, seemingly lost in his thoughts, his eyes locked on an indeterminate spot on the desk. Judy looked on, unwilling to interrupt his concentration, before he raised his head, finding the words he was searching for. “Mr. Hare, have any mice spoken to you recently?”

“Mice? I don't see how that has anything to do with what happened here today,” Mr. Hare said.

“We're pursuing all possible angles here, Mr. Hare. I assure you that any information you give us – anything at all – would be greatly appreciated.”

“Our company has a number of rodent clients. I get mice in here every day from Old Rodentia looking to store their winnings from the casino.”

“No, not any day-to-day consumer clients. Big clients,” Nick said. Judy could see which track he was running on, but his phrasing was awkward. She interrupted him to ask the question herself.

“What Officer Wilde is trying to ask, Mr. Hare, is if you've have any institutional clients represented by mice recently. We think they may be linked to Mr. Weaselton in some way,” she lied. They had no credible evidence linking anyone to the weasel except his statements indirectly linking him to the mammal supremacist threats on the bank. If Mr. Hare didn't take the bait, they'd end up nowhere.

“I do, but I can't exactly divulge their information,” Mr. Hare said.

“The representative or the institutions?” Judy asked. 

“The representatives. The institutions I have to report, by law. I can give you those freely.”

“We would appreciate that,” Nick said. The rabbit behind the desk nodded and turned to his computer, pressing a few keys and pulling up a spreadsheet from his files. The file printed out quickly enough from a machine next to his desk and Mr. Hare stood up to hand it to them. Judy and Nick stared at the paper for a few moments – Nick raised his head first.

“That's it?” he asked.

“They're all unions.”

“We're fairly popular among the labor community because of our higher interest rates,” Mr. Hare said. “They're another one of our niche clients that we strive to serve here at AMCU.”

“Carrots, look at this,” Nick said, putting his paws on the paper, pointing to several unions on the bottom of the list.

“Municipal Transit Workers Local 40, United Electrical Track Workers Local 19, Brotherhood of Underground Civil Engineers Local 1,” Judy read. “They're all transit unions.”

“All-mice transit unions. Mr. Hare, have the representatives for these unions contacted you recently?”

Mr. Hare seemed perplexed, raising an eyebrow at the duo. “Officers, I thought you were investigating the robbery?”

“We are, Mr. Hare. This information is also of interest for the tandem investigation of the murder of Mr. Bos.”

“Oh my – you never mentioned that Mr. Bos was murdered.”

“Your business card was found in his wallet. We were on our way here before the robbery – which is why we got here so early,” Judy said.

“I see. Well, officers, I can tell you that there are no representatives for those unions. Just a representative. Singular. Being that they all do business at this institution and they all work in similar fields, the three unions you mentioned decided on a single representative. I'm afraid that's all I can legally tell you.”

“But if we were to search the union leadership rolls-”

“You would find a single common name among them, yes.”

Judy and Nick looked at each other, smiling. Finally. If they knew who represented the workers responsible for the transit cameras, they'd be able to find who kept tampering with the cameras. Judy looked over at Mr. Hare, taking her patrol cap in her hand. 

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Hare. We've got to go interview Mr. Weaselton now,” she said, beaming. Nick almost fell over himself jogging to the door, holding it open for Judy. Mr. Hare simply stood up and bowed, thanking them for their service and their time.

As they exited the credit union and got back to their car, Nick threw his paws into the air, accidentally hitting the roof as he did so. They were still smiling at each other.

“Judy! You were right! This is excellent!”

“If we get in touch with the union rep and get them to agree to hand out duty logs, we'll be able to figure out who's been messing with the cameras,” she said.

“And if we bust them, we find the algorithm they used to loop the camera footage, use that to restore the original data, and we have our evidence for the assaults, the location of our witnesses, and the identity of who dumped Mr. Bos's body!”

“I told you this lead was worth it! I told you!” she screamed, reaching over to hug him. Stunned, he returned it, breaking apart and looking forward at the crowd still gathered in the plaza, paying them no attention and equally ignoring the orders of the police. The wolves dressed in black assault gear, standing guard by the entrance to Twentynine Palms, however, had a sizable section of the plaza under control, their presence much more dominating and authoritarian than that of the police.

“Look at the mess you caused,” Nick chided, picking up the radio. Judy scoffed, leaning back in her seat to let her partner work his magic.

“Ninth precinct dispatch this is Unit 07-11. We need the location of the suspect from the robbery at Twentynine Palms for an interrogation interview.”

“Unit 07-11, the suspect is being held at ninth precinct. Come on down. He's all yours.”

Nick switched the radio off, clapping. “You heard him, Carrots! Let's go.”

She couldn't stop grinning. Starting the car, she switched their emergency lights off before gingerly pulling out of the plaza. As she entered the avenue surrounding it, she'd noticed the damage to the curb she caused when they got to the scene. She was sure that the repairs would come out of her paycheck, but right now, she was determined to bring this case to a close. He heart began to race as they approached the ninth precinct, just a few blocks away from credit union. Pulling up to the garage, they presented their credentials and pulled into the visitors parking. Nick, for his part, has abandoned the aviator sunglasses, deciding to look the part of professional cop as they entered the elevator to the lobby. She helped him straighten his tie while they were waiting.

“Come on, Nick. You don't want to look like such a mess at the end of our second big case together,” she said, pulling the tie closer to his neck and wiping the dust off of his shirt.

“First. And I was wearing a ballistic vest and a rifle for a good minute there, Carrots. I'd like to see you look this good after that,” he said, smiling. He was hoping that the interview with Weaselton would go over much smoother than their last encounter two years ago. They didn't have the backing of Mr. Big to “ice” the weasel this time, and he knew how uncooperative he could get.

As they exited the elevator and walked into the lobby, what few officers that still remained in the building started clapping their hands, hooting at the two of them. The front desk officer – a polar bear whose last name was Snow – stood up and welcomed them.

“Well, well, well – if it isn't the hero cops from central plaza. You've earned yourselves a fine reputation here in the Naughty Ninth already. Leave some glory for those of us who work here, will you?”

“Hey, sorry about that. Central's just got higher standards, you know. If we pulled that off back in Savanna Square, Clawhauser would barely break a yawn,” Nick said, repressing a laugh. Judy couldn't, and leaned on her partner as the polar bear chuckled at them.

“You just called in about interviewing that suspect, right? He's in holding cell four, right through those guards,” the polar bear said, pointing to a thick steel door behind him leading to, from what they could see, was a drab gray hallway with steel cages inside. The hallway door itself was guarded by two uniformed officers, both of them rhinos. 

“Thanks, bud. I'll buy you a coffee when we're done,” Nick said, taking the lead and walking over to the door leading to the holding cells. The officers anticipated their movements, unlocking the door before they arrived so they could walk straight in. Another rhino officer on the inside of the hallway led them to holding cell four, unlocking it for the two of them, before locking it behind them. Duke Weaselton sat on a bench inside, holding his head.

“Why did it have to be you two. Here to almost kill me again?” the weasel said, despondent. Nick's ears immediately twitched.

“No, we're just here to talk,” Judy said, leaning against the wall. “Why'd you rob the bank, Duke?”

“You might as well kill me. I'm a dead animal anyway,” Duke said. Nick's innate suspicion seemed to be correct. Before Judy could even open her mouth, he held up his paw to silence her, walking over to sit down on the bunk next to the weasel.

“What do you mean, Duke?”

“Nick, I'm dead. I'm so dead. I'm dead and you're a cop. You can't help me.”

“Helping people is precisely why I became a cop. Believe it or not, it feels a lot better than scamming people – even if I don't make as much money,” Nick said, placing his arm around him. Duke looked up, between Nick and Judy, before burying his face in his paws again.

“They're gonna kill me, Nick. And they're gonna kill you if you get anything out of me. Doesn't matter that you're a cop,” Duke said, the angst in his voice growing. His voice started to break as he leaned further down, he face almost touching his knees. “

“No one's going to kill you, Duke. I swear on it.”

“Last time you swore an oath you became a cop.”

“Duke, you see her over there,” Nick said, pointing to Judy. She pointed at herself, as if to ask “why me?”. Duke looked over at her.

“Yeah? What about her? Last time I met her she stuffed me in a donut and almost had me put in a freezer.”

“Yeah, well, she's quite aggressive for a rabbit. But I'll tell you what: I trust my life to her every single day I come into work. She might be small, but she's got the heart of a lion. We'll keep you safe, Duke, but you have to talk to us. Who's going to kill you?”

Duke looked up at them again, leaning back onto the wall behind him, tears falling in controlled pairs off his face. His face contorted in a mixture of anger and disgust, each emotion filling him, directed entirely at himself. Sighing, he seemed to have made his answer. 

“Rickey Mouse.”

“Rickey Mouse?” Nick asked, tilting his head.

“Rickey Mouse hired me for this job. He's the local union boss for BUCE Local 1. He told me I could keep everything I got from it as payment. The only thing I'd need to do was rob the place and say what they told me to say.”

“So your spiel about those rabbits having to listen up?” Judy asked.

“All scripted. All planned. He told me that me saying those things fulfilled my end of the job and all the money I got would be his end of it. I thought it was easy money, but, Nick, you don't understand these animals, alright? They're on another level, alright? Like, you fail them and they bury you in concrete under a railway tunnel kind of level.”

“The unions haven't been violent like that since the dot-com crash and the crisis afterward,” Nick said. “Why would they kill you? Or even offer you this job?” 

“It wasn't them. Not entirely. They contract me out, but I'm pretty sure Rickey's being hired by someone else, too. I'm just the last one in a long line of people being hired to do stuff like this, Nick.”

“What do you mean when you say 'it wasn't him'? I thought you said you'd been hired by Rickey Mouse,” Judy asked, her paw moving faster than she could write. Her carrot pen slipped from her grasp and landed on the floor more times than she was comfortable with. At this rate, it would be easier to just record the conversation and call it a day.

“Rickey hired me to rob the bank, but the order came from up higher. Much higher. Like, we're talking someone Rickey said 'yes ma'am' to on the phone – and Rickey never says that. He's old school rough-and-tumble from the south side of the canal district, yeah? Alright, animals like him just don't say 'yes ma'am.' It's not in his nature.”

“Do you know who he was speaking to?” Judy asked.

“No, he always told me that by the time I needed to know, I'd know. That wasn't the only animal he acted strange around. He'd say 'yes, sir' on the phone, every now and then, but I've never seen him jump and stand up straight while talking on the phone. Rickey was terrified of this gal.”

“Any reason why they had you rob this bank? Specifically this bank? Why they had you say those things in there?” Judy asked. Nick had left the questioning to her, relegating himself to rubbing Duke's back to make sure he was alright.

“It was retaliation. The rabbits over there defied an order, so this was payback. We'd hit them hard enough and throughout their branches so that they'd eventually declare bankruptcy and they could swoop in.”

“Defied what order?”

“I don't know the specifics, but the guys Rickey worked for wanted to buy out the bank to use it for something. When they refused, the order came down.”

“When did the order to rob the bank come, Duke?” Judy asked. She had stopped writing notes, engaging the weasel with her full attention. She needed to know the time line to sort through the increasingly tangled criminal web weaving itself through her brain.

“Last Monday, right before things got really intense. After that, there were phone calls off the wall. Honestly, there was more contract work than I knew what to do with. There's an entire criminal network operating all over Zootopia right now and you two have no idea.”

Nick and Judy locked eyes, registering mutual panic. “Last Monday,” Nick wanted to be sure, reaching into his pocket, looking for his phone, again forgetting that he had broken it and had yet to buy a replacement. He frantically searched through his notes, being beaten by Judy, who had hers in her paw.

“Last Monday was the Central Station Incident,” Judy said.

“Yeah, that's when everything took off,” Duke said.

Judy had the officer outside unlock the door, racing Nick to their patrol car, a sense of accomplishment and pride being replaced by a deep-seated fear. Duke's words echoed in both of their heads: “there's an entire criminal network operating all over Zootopia right now and you have no idea.” If everything started taking off for the bad guys after the Central Station Incident and they'd only investigated these two crimes, then that must mean that there were more related crimes occurring throughout the city that they weren't event picking up. Jumping across the hood of the car, Judy started it and screeched out of the garage, not bothering to wait until Nick was buckled in. They needed to get back to Central Precinct fast, for everyone's sake.


	11. All the Angels Sing

Chapter X: All the Angels Sing

Judy's driving had almost caused several accidents in the border tunnel between Sahara and Savanna Squares. Her emergency lights and sirens wailing, echoing against the ceramic tiles of the tunnels, their screams seemed to sync with her heartbeat. Nick clutched his seat, clenching down on his teeth, his eyes swinging from the road to Judy in increasing urgency.

“Carrots, you know I think you normally have pretty good ideas, but this is definitely not one of them,” he said, his voice cracking, trying to remain calm. 

“No time, Nick! We've got to get back to central and track down every camera that's been tampered with in the last week and a half. If the culprits have been looping footage to hide the crimes we've noticed, what do you think about the crimes we don't know about? The edited footage is our only lead to more crimes,” Judy said. Her breathing was steady, even if her heart wasn't. She was firm. She was focused. Cars in the tunnel seemed to stand still to her, as if she had pressed a pause button on life itself but were allowed to continue moving. She blazed through the tunnel exit and could hear the blaring car horns of the angry and confused animals behind them, but only for a moment, before even those faded with distance.

“Judy, you're driving like a sloth! Slow down!” Nick shouted, increasingly sick. She skid around the corner on the main avenue, almost causing another accident, slowing down only when they neared the entrance to the central precinct garage. Francine, hearing the spectacle before she could see it, already had the gate open for them, not bothering to check their badges.

“No time to catch the elevator,” Judy shouted, hopping over their car and toward the set of stairs at the far end of the garage. Their daily training had allowed Nick to build up his stamina and endurance, allowing him to keep pace with her despite her natural advantage in speed. When they reached the lobby, the precinct was almost empty – a far cry from the crowded applause they received from the ninth precinct. Clawhauser stood up when he saw the pair, pointing in the direction of the conference room on the second floor.

“Judy! Nick! The chief-”

“Hello officers,” a firm, feminine voice came from overhead. Looking up, they saw a slender ocelot wearing a conservative suit leaning over the railing, smiling at them. An orchid was pinned to her lapel and her tail waved at them in tandem with her paws. “We've been waiting for you ever since we heard about what happened in Sahara Square.”

“Ma'am, I don't know who you are, but we're in a hurry on official police business,” Judy said, standing her ground. The way the ocelot smiled at her after she'd spoken stroked an anger in her. It wasn't a genuine smile, like the way Clawhauser or Nick or her parents would give her: it was a conniving smile, loaded with as much pretense as the feigned decorum in the title “officer” when she initially addressed them. 

“I really do think you ought to be up here. Your chief does as well. We've all got something to say to you,” the ocelot said, turning around and entering the conference room. Nick and Judy looked at each other and nodded. They'd trusted each other through life and death – making their way up the stairs to the second floor was something they could accommodate into their investigation.

They entered the conference room with a deference usually unknown to them. The oak paneled room held a screen on the far side and was cut down the middle by a long, oval table. Three animals sat in the center of it on one side, the chief, the ocelot, and a black cat who was flanked by them both. It was the cat who stood up when they entered – the chief looked at them but averted his eyes shortly afterward, his head hanging.

“Officers, please, take a seat,” the cat said, pointing her paw to the seats opposite them at the table. Her voice was a sing-song alto, clearly meant to sooth – and just as easily deceive, Judy imagined. They took seats across the trio, placing their patrol caps down and politely folding their hands on the table. If Nick hadn't known any better, he could have sworn he was at a tribunal.

“I'm Mayor Felis,” the cat said, extending a paw. Nick and Judy shook it in turn. “This is my chief of staff, Cynthia Spots. I was told you've spoken with her before?”

“Very briefly, Madame Mayor. I tried recruiting them to work for the Mammal Inclusion Project, but they very dearly wanted to remain on the ZPD. They're quite dedicated to their job,” the ocelot said. “Pinnacles of public service to the city.”

“Quite,” the mayor said.

Chief Bogo said nothing. He refused to look the duo in the eye.

“Madame Mayor? Chief? With all due respect, why are we here? We've just received a big break in the Bos case,” Judy said. Nick could feel her feet tapping the ground. He stopped them by placing his foot on hers.

“Officer Wilde. Officer Hopps.” The chief finally said, lifting a remote control from the table and pressing a button, crossing his arms.

The screen on the wall jumped to life, revealing dozens of screens of concurrent traffic footage throughout the city. All of the traffic cameras, Judy noticed, were in Tundra Town and its border tunnels. The time stamps all raced along at the same pace, except she'd noted that they all displayed yesterday's date. She noticed a lone black and white police cruiser making its way across the screens. She watched it enter the tunnels, exiting to a long and winding private roadway along one of the tunnel's many maintenance exits. She watched it stop at the gates of a massive, snow-topped villa. She watched polar bears search the car, throwing a rabbit and a fox on the hood, both clad in the uniform of the ZPD.

“Mind explaining this to us?” the chief said, raising his eyebrows. 

“How did you-”

“ZPD Internal Affairs has been investigating you two since the allegations of excessive force and abuse of power by Mr. Bos arose against you last Monday,” the chief said, his voice gaining tempo. “ZPD Vice Squad's been watching Mr. Big ever since Mayor Felis was inaugurated. They alerted IA to these tapes this morning, and I was only informed a few moments ago, when the administration brought this to my attention.”

“Officers, we're in a bit of a bind here,” the mayor said. “I've built my entire career out of rooting out corruption in city government. I sacked the entire Tundra Town Chamber of Commerce for their dealings with Mr. Big. I had to reorganize the entire transit authority after we discovered that it was essentially a government-funded smuggling ring. Now I've got the two most popular officers in all of Zootopia visiting the most notorious criminal figure in the Animal Kingdom,” the mayor said, yawning. She was prone to do this when she talked at length on any subject. Scratching the back of her ears, she allowed her chief of staff to speak.

“Now, if this had been a one-off occurrence, this meeting would have been a fact-finding mission to see what your side of the story was,” Cynthia said bringing out a binder and opening the pages. Judy saw their personnel files sitting inside. “But being that you've been accused of excessive force, tried selling police information to the media, deliberately turned off your police radio and transponder without permission, and, as of today, recklessly abandoned your scheduled post to go gallivanting around playing hero, we don't think that this is an isolated occurrence.”

“Why can't we tell our side of it? Chief, what the hell is this?” Nick said, slamming his paw on the table, standing up. “Chief! You know we're good cops – we were chasing a lead on the Bos case!”

“Don't raise your voice at me, Wilde,” Bogo said, pointing his hooves at him. His gaze forced Nick back into his seat, his tail between his legs. “I know what I see, and what I see is two cops who've been out of their damn minds for the past two weeks! You think because the city loves you that you're above the rules? That you can go talk to the media? Talk to crime lords? Start disappearing from the net and reappearing when you want? That's not a cop. That's a vigilante!” The chief, scolding Nick for raising his voice, was almost shouting now – the blood vessels in his head gaining tone under the pressure. He stood up at he continued, still pointing at Nick.

“I want good cops on the force, you two. Good cops. And the way you two have been acting the past two weeks has shown me that you either didn't learn a damn thing at the academy or you just decided that acting like a respectable member of society just doesn't cut it for you anymore.”

The chief stopped, breathing heavily, looking down at the mayor and the chief of staff before sitting back down again, crossing his arms and huffing. 

“Officers, let me be blunt: the Zootopia Administrative Code tells us that we should take your badges. Simply offering investigation secrets to the media last night was grounds for administrative action,” the mayor said, looking over at the chief. “Quite frankly, Chief Bogo took an incredible risk on your behalf by letting you stay on the case after last night. As I said before, you're two of Zootopia's most beloved public officials – I daresay more popular than I am, unfortunately.”

“What are you saying, Madame Mayor?” Judy asked, a lump welling in her throat. She felt Nick's paw on hers under the table. She gripped it tighter with each passing second. 

“We want you to resign from the police force,” Cynthia said, finally saying what the other two, more gingerly animals could not. “There would be a public backlash if you were fired, and no doubt we would see a reduction in ZPD morale as well. This way, you get to keep your benefits for a little while and we get to have a city that's able to heal and move on from your antics.”

“And if we refuse?” Nick asked, his paws equally gripping the table and Judy's paw. Anger shined through his eyes, burying themselves deep into the ocelot's, though he could tell that she was amused by this more than anything else.

“If you refuse, you'll be placed on unpaid administrative leave for two weeks while Internal Affairs handles your discharge paperwork and you'll be forcibly removed from the force. The law is very clear on your actions, officers. Regardless, you wouldn't be allowed to wear that badge ever again.”

Nick could feel it. Even though they were two different animals, he could feel Judy's soul being taken from her. She stood up, tears welling in her eyes. 

“No. No, you can't do this. Title Two of the Administrative Code-”

“Allows for the removal of officers of the peace and notaries public by public elected officials with cause and the agreement of their supervisor,” the ocelot said, quoting the code almost word for word.

“You – you agreed to this?” Judy asked, looking at the chief. The tears began to come down, first little by little, then all at once; veritable streams poured down her cheeks, her face contorting in pain. “How could you?”

“Judy, I'm sorry-”

“Don't. Chief, don't,” Nick said, taking Judy into his arms, allowing her to cry into his chest. “Chief, you know us – we would never do anything that we didn't think would endanger the city.”

“It's not about thinking, Wilde – it's about what is. You and Hopps broke the law. You broke it again and again and we have enough evidence to press charges against you if the DA wanted to, but we're offering you a way out that reflects your record of service. Cops have to be the finest among us, and you proved to me that you weren't that.”

Nick stood there in silence, not being able to respond. So, too, did the panel, staring uncomfortably at the two of them while Judy sobbed into Nick's shirt, save Ms. Spots – the ocelot's tail and ears giving away her immense satisfaction, even if her face remained stoic. 

“Your badges, officers,” the mayor said, placing her paw out. Nick handed his over dutifully. He looked down at Judy, still crying into his chest, unable to eke out a word. She desperately clung to him, gripping his back so tight that, for once, her paws actually hurt. 

“Chief, it was my idea to go to Mr. Big and ZNN. I turned off the radio and transponder. Everything was my fault. Please, don't punish Judy in this,” he said, pleading. It wasn't like foxes to lay themselves so openly to others. It wasn't like foxes to bring their ears behind their head and submit to another animal. It wasn't like him to let them know that they finally got to him, but it was his only choice. “Judy's a good cop, don't crush her career for my crimes.”

“And who drove you to the compound? Who drove you to ZNN? Who controlled all systems in that squad car while it was off the grid?” Ms. Spots asked, tilting her head and smiling. “Mr. Wilde, this isn't a request.”

“I'm sorry it's come to this – if it could be avoided, I'd find another way – but the law is the law, and we've all taken our oaths. Allowing her to continue to serve would be violating mine as much as you've violated yours,” the mayor said, her ears lowering in sympathy. “Ms. Hopps, I'm sorry.”

Judy didn't respond – at least, not to the mayor. She was muttering to herself in between breaths, speaking so low that Nick could barely hear her, just making out what she was saying.

“No, no no no no no. This is a dream. This. This is a dream. I'll wake up in my apartment and it'll be over and I'll go to work and hang out with Nick and we'll just – we'll make the city safe together. Make the city safe.”

“Mr. Wilde. The badge,” Cynthia said, reaching her paw out next to the mayor's. Nick looked down at Judy, still clawing at his back. He looked between them, kneeling down and gingerly working his paws under her badge, undoing the clip that secured it in place. Judy screamed as he took it off, handing it over. She screamed as the mayor and chief closed their briefing booklets, exiting the room. She screamed as the ocelot gave him a card for a Police Animals' Benevolent Association psychologist and counselor. She screamed as he picked her up and carried her from the room, out into the empty lobby – truly empty this time. Even Clawhauser had somehow disappeared, bringing the station to a dead halt.

Nick walked without emotion to the elevator, Judy's wails piercing his ears, making him wince in pain. Two years a cop and he was still a criminal: funny how life turned out. With a nigh-inaudible ding, the elevator came and Nick stepped inside, pressing the button for the garage. Judy's screams echoed in the steel box, amplifying his pain, and he imagined, hers as well. He walked over to their former cruiser, Judy still in his arms. He slung her over his shoulder, reaching into her pants to grab their car keys from her.

Unlocking the car, he opened the driver's side door and reached over into the central console, taking out a tranquilizer dart from Judy's ammo box, sliding it into the rabbit's arm. Her shrieks became whines, and her whines became whimpers before she was passed out, cold. He removed the dart from her arm and threw it back into the car, slamming the door. Flipping her limp body onto his other shoulder, he reached into her other pocket to retrieve her phone, gingerly laying her down on the hood of the car before making a phone call. Nick still knew the animal's number by heart.

“Hey Fin, I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this concludes the second act of our story. I want to thank everyone who's been reading and enjoying, and give extra thanks to those who've given kudos or commented: really, after a long day of work and school, it feels good to read your comments.


	12. Raison d'être

Chapter XI: Raison d'être

“Judy?” Nick called, knocking on the apartment door loudly, echoing the ratta-tatta of the jackhammers outside her apartment. There'd been a lot of mice with safety vests and hard hats crawling over the area, and Nick was unsure which one of them, if any, was Rickey Mouse – their only lead to the case they'd officially been dropped from but which Nick had every intention of solving, if not for the peace of the city than for Judy's absolution. “Judy, you can't stay in that room forever.”

It had been three days since they were let go from the police force and Nick was tired of sitting around doing nothing. He'd made sure that Judy made it home safely, getting a ride from Finnick to take them to her apartment that night. He'd stayed by her side until she woke up from the effects of the tranquilizer: a two milligram dose of etophine was enough to knock out a juvenile elephant for an hour – Judy had been unconscious for twelve. He stayed awake for all of it, welcoming her back into the world after the drug had worn off.

That first day had been hell. Judy had woken up in her bed and laid there, silent for hours on end. Whenever Nick had thought she'd gone back to sleep, he could see her – hear her – trembling. He'd held her for as long as he could, eventually passing out from exhaustion, waking again to find her in the same state. As he went to leave, she had finally sat up, reaching a paw out and retracting it just as quickly, her voice gone and her eyes averting his. She'd lost her raison d'être.

He'd stayed with her that second day, too, when she finally found it in herself to stand up, staring outside her window at the construction site below, staring at the mice coming to and from. She studied each and every one of them, learning their faces, their mannerisms, their favorite drink – she'd absorbed as much as she could from the neighborhood around her, learning whatever secrets she could from the safety of her window. It had taken Nick several tries just to get her to drink water. She still hadn't eaten.

On this third day, Nick had finally left her apartment, telling her that he was leaving to get food. He held a bag of fresh carrots and blueberries, canned coffee, and today's edition of the Zootopian Times, rapping on the door with a steady rhythm that, he was sure, was bound to annoy her to open the door. To his dismay, he'd been standing outside knocking for several minutes, with no end to the madness in sight.

“Hey, keep it down. If you're her boyfriend and she's not seeing you, she's just not interested!” he heard from the apartment next to Judy's. 

“Yeah, buddy, other people live here, too, you know!”

“I'm not her boyfriend!” Nick shouted at the door. Raucous laughter and stomping hooves replied in mockery. He ruffled his face, more than a little annoyed at the slight.

“You spent two days in her apartment, guy! You went down to the corner bistro to get her some comfort food, didn't you?” the voice said. Nick looked down at the bag and wondered how they knew.  
“We hear everything, by the way! Even your footsteps! These floors don't creak for nothing!”

Nick was just about done with the antics of whoever was on the other side of that door. Putting his bag down, he walked over to the neighbor's door, ready to start pounding on it, when he heard a deadbolt unlocking itself from where he had been. He saw Judy's door open out of the corner of his eye. Moving back over, he picked up the bag and let himself in her apartment. Judy sat at her desk, staring at the ceiling, a look of defeat on her face.

“So,” Nick said, closing the door behind him. “Are you going to be like this forever or are we going to investigate this case?”

She looked over at him, her eyes puffy and red, tinged with heartache. “Nick,” she said softly, barely able to mutter his name. Truth be told, that was the first time he'd heard her speak since they were fired. It wasn't much, but it was a start. “What case? We're not – I'm not a cop anymore. We can't help anybody. Not Mr. Bos. Not those victims. I can't even help myself,” she said, allowing her head to float down to the desk, resting it on her arms. “How can we work on the case? What would it do?”

Nick took out the copy of the Times from the shopping bag, laying it down on the desk. Buried in the first page, in a short paragraph on the bottom right of the page was a headline he'd been dreading to read since that day in the cell.

“SAHARA SQUARE – The alleged culprit behind Thursday's robbery attempt at the All Mammal Credit Union was found dead in his cell overnight from an apparent suicide. Officers at the ninth precinct discovered the suspect, Duke Weaselton, dead in his cell shortly after midnight. He was found hanging in his cell by the relief officer after a change in shifts. The mayor's office has condemned the police department's inability to stop the preventable death, calling Mr. Weaselton's demise “a blow to justice and accountability in a city rife with instability”. CONTINUED ON PAGE A-15”

Judy stared at the article, moving her paw to the paper. Nick wasn't sure how she would react. He moved behind her and sat down on her bed, staring out her window and she struggled to find words to express herself. After an eternity of silence, Nick finally spoke up – the anger and anxiety within him boiling over.

“They're still killing animals,” he said, clutching his paws. “There are still animals in danger. That's why we need to be out there.”

“If only we knew who 'they' are,” Judy said, her voice fading in and out between a whisper. “Nick, you know we can't do this alone.”

“That's fine. We're not alone,” he said. “If you think we've gotten this far on our own, Carrots, you have way too much faith in our abilities as cops. Sorry, ex-cops,” he said, correcting himself, earning a pained glare from Judy. Sure, the comment was in bad taste, but if she could stab him with her eyes, she was on the road back to being her old self. Nick smiled at his indiscretion.

“So, he's dead then?” Judy asked, as if late to the party, seemingly just grasping what she'd read and what he'd said. “He's dead, the yak's killers are still out there, and we're the only ones who can possibly piece the picture together?”

“Sure seems like it,” Nick said, placing the rest of the bag's contents on the floor by the bed, tapping the space next to him. In a fluid motion, Judy seemed to fall from her chair onto the bed, half-collapsing onto her mattress and into Nick. She embraced him, burying her face into his chest. If nothing else, they were each others' only constancy over the last two years. She needed to hold onto him; to remind herself of who she was – what she was – and what she was fighting to protect. 

“Nick?” she said, still clinging to him. He simply grunted, leaning back on the bed, taking her with him. “Where are we going to start? We have no resources, no authority, no weapons, we've got nothing.”

“I've had nothing before,” he said, bringing his arm around her, staring at the ceiling. “You'd be surprised at how far it gets you. Nothing to rely on but your grit and your will to survive. And now it's actual survival. If I'd thought my introduction to The Game would be this violent I would've stayed a hustler,” he said, only half-joking. Life was simply when he was hustling: his friends didn't seem to die as often and his partners weren't wracked with anguish. He didn't feel the need to put his muzzle close to the danger and he didn't feel like he was flying too close to the sun, about to burn up and take his world with him. Now, however, the bodies were real, and they'd were inaugurated into the game in blood.

They laid there in silence, much like they had on the first day, except Judy was much more animated, her paws finding his, positioning her head to fit under his muzzle, into his neck. There were worse fates than being kicked off the force, she had decided. Technically speaking, she still had her partner. Judging from the way her phone had been blowing up from messages from officers at the precinct, she still had her colleagues, as well. They watched the shadows move across her room, tracking the sun as the day went by, listening to the din of the construction site die off into silence as the last workers went home. As evening fell on Zootopia, she finally broke the silence, leaning up and looking him in the eyes.

“Where are we going to start?” she asked, a new determination in her voice.

“I thought you'd never ask,” Nick said, untangling himself from her grip and sitting back up on the bed. “Luckily, I know just the animals.” Standing up, he offered her the carrots that had been in the bag, eagerly taking the blueberries for himself. “Come on, let's go – you can eat on the way,” he said. Judy happily obliged, taking a few carrots and stuffing them into her pockets, eating one as they left the apartment. She hailed a taxi coming down the avenue, allowing Nick to dictate where they went.

It wasn't long before they found themselves back among abandoned factories and warehouses, the dull neon glow of St. Bernard's Alehouse greeted them as they stepped out of the car.

“This dingy bar again?” Judy asked, wondering why in the world Nick had brought them back here.

“I told you last time we were here, Carrots – Saint is a veteran of the game. There's only two animals in this city who can help us get a lead on this case without access to the police database and Saint is one of them.” Nick held the door open for her as they went inside, the smell of whiskey and cigarettes hitting her as hard as the first time she'd been there. Sitting alone at the bar was a short fennec fox, talking wistfully to Saint, the massive, rotund St. Bernard. Part-time bartender, part-time hustler: the jobs weren't always mutually exclusive.

“Saint, the usual!” Nick called as he followed Judy inside. Without hesitation, Saint began preparing a Fox Poison, setting it down on the bar as Nick took a seat next to Finnic. 

“You finally got her to see the light of day. I'm impressed – I thought you'd lost your damn mind when you joined the fuzz,” Finnic said, raising a glass and toasting Nick as he downed his drink with vigor. “I take it you heard about Duke?” Finnic asked. Saint leaned over the bar, lighting a cigarette under the bar's no smoking sign, waiting for a response.

“Yeah. I think I know who did it, too,” Nick said, piquing both animals' interests. When he saw their ears pop up, he began his story, Judy dutifully chiming in to fill in details that Nick glossed over or missed. They talked about the incident at the train station and the missing evidence and witnesses; Mr. Bos's murder and subsequent cover-up; they talked about visiting Mr. Big and ZNN and how neither avenue led to anything but their demise at ZPD and about the business card left in the yak's wallet and how it led them to the All Mammal Credit Union and Duke Weaselton. Duke's tearful confession in his holding cell, coupled with their disbarment from the force and the weasel's untimely demise, seemed all too perfectly orchestrated. Finnick and Saint nodded their heads occasionally, indicating that they were listening intently. As Nick wrapped up, he ordered another drink, knocking it down before concluding. 

“And that's basically how we got to here,” Nick said.

“First things first: you're not a cop anymore, correct? This is accurate?” Saint asked, looking Nick dead in the eyes.

“No, why?”

“Good, which means I don't have to call anybody, which also means I can do this,” Saint said, grabbing Nick by the collar with one paw and punching him with the other. Nick stumbled backward, falling over by the door.

“No, no yeah. I deserved that,” he said, standing up and rubbing his muzzle. 

“Oh you deserve more than that, Nicky. It just so happens that her being caught up in all this is all the punishment your idiot ass needs,” Finnick said. “Did you forget all your street smarts in your two years with the fuzz? Or were you just born stupid?”

“That's also fair,” Nick said.

“You two flew too close to the sun, it seems,” Saint said to Judy, nowhere near as hostile as he was to Nick. “You, I can forgive – you haven't been in this game long enough to understand these things. Nicky, on the other hand,” Saint gestured between Nick and Finnick, allowing the fennec to take over.

“Rickey Mouse. I can't believe he's still in the game,” Finnick said. Judy seemed confused, taking out her notebook to reference this conversation later.

“Who exactly is Rickey Mouse?” Duke seemed terrified of the animal.”

“For good reason. He's a psychopath. Easily the most violent union boss in Zootopia. And the greediest, too. If Rickey's involved, you best believe there's big, big money behind your killings,” Finnick said. “And the last time Rickey started going berserk, a lot of animals got hurt. Listen when I tell you, kid, he's not an animal you investigate. He's an animal you either bring down at once or take out for good. There's no middle ground.”

“But why would he get involved in some random assault case? Or the murder of Mr. Bos for that matter?” Judy asked. Nick had apparently gotten over the punch, sitting back down next to her at the bar. “What's his motive?”

“Money, power, vengeance – could be anything, really. The animal is unhinged. He kidnapped a family of cats thirty or so years ago because a group of pure-carnivore tourist alligators wanted to taste them,” Saint said, lighting another cigarette, the smoke dancing between his nostrils.

“And the ZPD hasn't put him away?” Judy asked, incredulous. “How is that possible?”

“The eighties were a different time, bunny,” Finnick said. “You could get away with a lot, especially with friends in the right places. And when you control a union with major voting power in every district in the city – especially Little Rodentia – well,” Finnick trailed off, allowing Judy to use her imagination. 

“It was acceptable in the eighties,” Saint said. “Money, drugs, and power were practically a religion. How do you think your partner over here learned to make so much money in so short a time?”

“I like to think part of it was my innate skill at conning animals,” Nick said, earning a laugh from Finnick.

“Nicky, you're good, but you didn't start that good. You didn't even know what cards were when you walked in here, let alone how to count them,” Finnick said. Saint was the one laughing this time, pointing at Nick.

“Do you remember the time he thought he could beat Big Billy at pool for twenty bucks? Tell your bunny friend about how that worked out!”

Nick blushed, hiding his face in his shoulder, while Judy smiled and punched him in the arm, egging him on. The four of them enjoyed themselves under a cloud of smoke and aging florescent lights, Saint pouring them rounds of bourbon from the top shelf – on the house, if Judy could keep up. It was a half past ten before Judy could steer the conversation back on track.

“Nick said you'd be able to help us look for evidence – try to find the missing pieces to the Bos murder.”

“Yeah, you'd be able to. There's really only two ways you can find that missing footage of yours – either in the central archives of the Center for Information Security, which you already know, or find the animals responsible for physically accessing those cameras and getting the algorithm from them themselves,” Saint said.

“You seem fairly knowledgeable on technology, Saint, especially for such an old critter,” Judy said. Perhaps she'd imbibed a little too much bourbon tonight.

“You can hustle online, too, sweetheart,” the dog bellowed. “No one said you can't teach an old dog new tricks,” he said, winking at her. 

Judy looked over her notebook – pages upon pages of new information on Rickey Mouse and his unions, a history of Zootopia in the 1980s, and more than a few doodles of Nick. She'd have her night cut out for her if she wanted to sort through it all.

“Alright, guys, I'd better head home,” Judy said, putting her notebook back in her pocket. “Based on everything you've told me, I've got a lot of research to do tonight. We still have a case to solve, and there's too many moving parts to sift through it at a bar.”

Her announcement drew protests from Finnick and Saint, before the latter agreed to call her a taxi. Nick escorted her outside as she waited. 

“Research, huh? Nick said, looking down at her, his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah. We've got a dead executive from Goldman Yaks going nuts at a train station, missing witnesses, a dead suspect at the ninth precinct, and absolutely no hard evidence of it all – and it all points back to one animal,” Judy said, going over the relationships in her mind. What did all of these events have in common? There had to be some grand string tying them all together somehow, she was sure of it. She just had to muscle through and find it.

Seeing the taxi pull up to the bar, she hugged Nick goodnight while he stayed in the doorway. As she opened the car door, he called out to her. “Hey Carrots, follow the money! Once we find out who's paying for all this, we'll find out who Mouse is working for!”

She hesitated before getting into the taxi, nodding in agreement: follow the money – it would've been a lot easier when they still had their badges. She got in the car and drove off, pulling her notebook back out as the cabbie tried to make conversation. Duke Weaselton was tied to the credit union, which was tied to Mouse, and all of them were tied to the dead yak. What did Mr. Bos want to buy the credit union for? And for whom? And who was Mouse working for? If there was a criminal network at play in Zootopia, then the money trail had to be long – and it had to be massive: there'd be more information at the Center for Information Security. As the taxi pulled into the border tunnel separating her district from this one, she resolved to go there with Nick once they were open tomorrow. Surely there would lie the answer.

As Judy's taxi pulled away, Nick stood back, waving goodbye. Heading back inside the bar, he sat back down and ordered another Fox Poison, laughing with the two friends all the while. He caught a glimpse of a red flash in the corner of his eye and saw the nightly news at eleven come on the television, Mayor Felis's form coming into view as she organized yet another press conference for the city. Next to her, ZNN displayed the pictures of Duke Weaselton and Chief Bogo, their headline for the night lighting up Nick's eyes, forcing fear into his heart:

“Chief Bogo sought in the death of Sahara Square suspect. ZPD's future questioned amid Twentynine Palms panic.”

The cat took the stage, laying out a new vision for Zootopia's future, the ZPD wholly absent from the equation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another chapter that was an endeavor to write. It took no less than three drafts - and three completely different scene layouts - before I was satisfied with the direction this chapter took. I try and aim for a turnover rate between 1-3 days, and I definitely thought I was pushing it with this one. Nevertheless, I think it'll set up the next few scenes quite nicely, and starts off the third act exactly how I want it. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed.


	13. All the Pieces Matter

Chapter XII: All the Pieces Matter

“Follow the money.” That had been Nick's advice to her. But where would she start? It's not like any of the animals involved were career criminals – not entirely. Mr. Bos had been an executive at one of the biggest banks in the world who managed billions in legitimate assets. Mr. Mouse was busy building a brand new subway system under Zootopia and had millions coming into the unions every day. Judy knew she wouldn't find anything suspicious in the mega-stacks of money being thrown about. The evidence would be more subtle – tied to needles in a haystack: small transactions that otherwise shouldn't be there. They were the face-to-face transfers of money that would establish who knew who and who killed who. She needed to find them.

As Judy's taxi slipped into the tunnel, she studied the complicated mess laid out in between pages of notes. She put a paw to her head, trying to figure out where the relationships began and ended. The orange bars of the overhead lights weaving in and out as they drove, the cabbie listened to traditional bovine music: heavy on the cowbell. 

At the top of the page was Benjamin Bos: banker at Goldman Yaks, assaulting passengers at Zootopia Central Station and a fellow yak one day and dying the next. Who could have wanted him dead? He'd wanted to buy out the All Mammal Credit Union and was sent packing, and shortly after was found dead in Tundra Town. The other yak involved in the scuffle was an obvious suspect, but Judy had no idea where – or who – he was. Maybe it was his employers? Or, just as likely, Rickey Mouse – the animal who ordered a hit on the credit union to begin with.

Judy noticed her phone buzzing, taking it out of her pocket. Hundreds of notifications. This didn't surprise her. She'd hardly touched the thing since she and Nick were thrown off the police force. She unlocked it, getting bombarded when the notifications didn't come from a new unread message, but from Legistar – the app taking her into the world of the city's council and administration. It was a useful tool for a cop to learn exactly what the newest laws were and when they would take effect. Judy had set her notification setting only to relate to criminal ordinances and the police department in order to avoid constant getting inundated with a constant stream of commendations and zoning laws. What was the council doing now? Budget season was supposed to be over.

She pressed her paw on the icon and took stock of her surroundings while she waited for the app to load. Here she was, sitting in the back of a taxi, organizing case notes and working Legistar even as she was forced out of the police department. If she hadn't known any better, she'd think she was the only “cop” working this late. As they passed exited the tunnel and drove down the exit ramp, they passed a parking lot. Two squad cars parked next to each other, facing opposite directions and their windows down so the officers on patrol could talk to one another. Maybe her assessment wasn't too outlandish after all?

Looking down at Legistar, she saw an abundance of notification icons, all of them stemming from the past three days. The latest notification was sent a few minutes ago, filed under “city police department”. Her eyes widened when she read its contents – shock and anger flowed through her as she continued to scroll down, the “whereas”s and “therefor”s of the council a litany of minor incidents the ZPD had had over the past two years, culminating in the events from the past two week and Judy and Nick's eventual dismissal:

“Whereas Officers Hopps and Wilde were, and are, considered the best and brightest of the city's police force; and

Whereas both mentioned officers have shown a complete lack of regard to the application and execution of the laws of the city of Zootopia; and

Whereas the Zootopia Police Department has found itself consistently unable to deal with major public unrest or resolve ongoing investigations;

Let it be resolved that the criminal and civil powers of the Zootopia Police Department be transferred to the Special Security Team, whose charter shall be approved by-”

“This has to be a mistake,” she said, closing the notification and looking at another ordinance in the police and law enforcement section – all recent council activity having taken place in the days since they were fired. She didn't want to believe what she saw there, but the sheer deluge of activity drowned out any hope that she had misread them. They had been condemned by the city council three days ago, the department's budget had been slashed by 60% yesterday, and today, after Duke Weaselton's body had been discovered overnight, the ninth precinct was being disestablished. 

The cabbie pulled up in front of her apartment building before she could click on any more of the myriad links, each one of them, she knew, would uncover another bombshell for the ZPD. She paid the driver, letting him keep the change, and scurried inside the lobby of her building. Something was definitely not right. There wasn't a politician in the country who could move legislation like that so fast, let alone legislation virtually gutting one of the oldest and proudest police departments in the world. She could catch her breath when she reached her room. 

Climbing the stairs to her walk-up and turning the corner to her floor, she noticed that her hallway was unusually quiet tonight. Normally, she'd be able to make out “Watering Hole Companion”, the old radio show her aging armadillo landlady tended to listen to from her room at the entrance to the hall. She'd be able to hear Bucky and Pronk – her curt, antelope neighbors – arguing through the thin walls at all hours of the night. Silence greeted her as she made her way down the hallway, taking the keys from her pockets and looking around, as if the florescent lights and drab wallpaper would give her reassurance that everything was fine. Judy's ears stood at full attention as she reached her door near the end of the hall.

She stood there, unmoving. What was this feeling inside her? She was entering her apartment – there was nothing to fear. This was her home. Her warren. Judy loitered in front of her apartment, looking to both sides of the hall, the building's silence giving her pause.

Partly out of curiosity and partly out of fear, she wandered over to the Oryx-Antlerson's apartment, lightly tapping on the door. They heard everything in the building, or so they claimed, much to her dismay. Judy was sure that she could whistle from outside the building and they would complain about it later to her – only they were allowed to be loud, it seemed. And yet, as she stood there rapping on the door, an unsettling quiet enveloped her. The sinking feeling she had in her stomach, nursing itself since she got out of the cab and learned of the city council's essential declaration of war against the police department, rattled her mind, forcing her to confront the fact that she was alone in her tenement. 

Judy stalked over to her apartment door, crouching down beside it. She looked ridiculous, but she'd be damned if she cared: she'd rather look ridiculous to Pronk and Bucky than throw her life away. The police academy's training was never lost on her: silent buildings meant screaming victims. She rolled her body to the other side of the door, training her ears to find the slightest of noises. Her ears were built for this – her mind and body were trained for it: negating the element of surprise. 

And she found none. Judy waited at her door for what seemed like an hour, standing up and leaning against the wall to brace herself from the shock of standing up after squatting for so long. She shook her head in disbelief. How paranoid would she have to be to think that just because her neighbors actually went to sleep around midnight for once that that meant she was in danger? She felt like laughing to herself, grabbing her keys and inserting them in the door, dropping her phone in the process.

It was picking it back up that saved her life. 

The bull crashed through her door, his horns pinning him to the wall behind her. Judy had been knocked aside by the animal. She got up, a deep laceration on her arm oozing blood at a steady pace, grabbing her phone and running. With her size and without her equipment, she was defenseless against the much larger animal and they both knew it – the beast wrangled himself from the wall and roared after Judy.

“Stay still, rabbit!” he shouted, charging at her. Judy's small size worked for her advantage, ducking into one of the passing doorways as the bull charged passed her, unable to reduce his speed. He smacked into the wall at the far end, next to the stairs she needed to get out. She hoped he was tactically ignorant of that fact.

Clad in all-black armor, she could tell that this wasn't some random thug. She hoped her neighbors were okay, but their well-being took a back seat to staying alive. As the bull removed himself from the far wall and primed himself for another charge at her, Judy began to run in his direction: she'd only have one shot at executing this, otherwise she'd be skewered on the bull's horns. As the animal charged at her, she built up her speed in the opposite direction, beginning to hop as they neared each other, twisting her body and sliding across the ground to move in between his stomping hooves and reach the other side. He was still charging when she ran to the door leading to the staircase and all but leaped down the stairs.

Her blood was all over the left sleeve of her shirt as she ran through the foyer and out into the half-completed transit plaza in front of her building. Empty streets and darkened street lamps welcomed her into the abyss – an empty building and an equally empty neighborhood. Apparently, the city that never sleeps had decided to take a day off today. Judy cursed her luck and ran toward the plaza. With no street lights and a new moon, she wouldn't be able to get very far on the surface if she ran. No cars visible on the road – and a low traffic, residential neighborhood – meant that there wouldn't be any taxis or easily available mass transit around, either. She had to get to the unfinished MetroTrail tunnels to survive. 

Ducking under the orange safety tape, she ran into the construction site, passing stacks of materiel and equipment, trying desperately to find the access route into the tunnel below. As she continued, she noticed the work trailers buzzing by, taking the time to turn her head and look at the names posted on the doors. They were arranged much like the offices at her old precinct. Stuart White, Chief Engineer. Ralph Cleary, Chief Safety Officer. Rickey Mouse, Union Representative. 

Judy stopped in her tracks, digging her heels into the dirt and stumbling over as she saw it. Here it was, only a few hundred meters from her apartment. Checking her surroundings to see if the bull was still on her tail, she walked over to the trailer to see if she could get inside. Trying the door, she found it locked.

“No good,” Judy said, her heart racing. The fact that she was attempting breaking and entering unsettled her. God forbid she get arrested for this type of thing. She didn't know if getting skewered to death by the bull in her apartment complex would be preferable to getting arrested. “There's got to be another way in.”

She peaked into the window of the trailer, themselves protected by a metal grate. The inside of the trailer was pitch black, but she could hear something moving: a steady, metallic thumping coming from the top of the trailer – a ventilation fan. Walking around the corner, Judy found crates of building material stacked by its side, climbing them and using them to jump up to the roof. Sure enough, in the middle of the trailer was a small, tin dome, a ventilation fan spinning slowly as the wind blew against her. Walking over, she used her paws to stop the fan's movements, ducking down inside the dome to get inside. She was just small enough where this was possible – any larger animal, including Nick, would have had to remove the dome entirely. 

Unable to see, she removed her phone from her pocket, using its flashlight to look around. The trailer was inconspicuous enough: a desk, mini-fridge, and a few filing cabinets. None of them were sized for a mouse, but Judy judged that this was intentional: no one had expected every transit contract in the city to go to mice, after all. She wandered to the desk, searching the papers it held. 

Invoices, tax documents, and engineering blueprints littered the desk, alongside requests for time off and health documents. Nothing unusual for a union representative at a construction side. Judy flipped through the pages, finding one at the bottom that piqued her interest.

“A bill of lading?” Judy knew that bills of lading were necessary to receive shipments to the construction site, but this particular form was a trans-shipment: something was moving through these tunnels, and this particular site was just a waypoint. “For the receipt and sale of one thousand kilograms of ammonium nitrate? What on Earth is this doing here? This is a fertilizer,” Judy whispered, not so much to alert anyone inside the trailer as to keep her sane. The case was moving too fast. She took a picture of the form, allowing the flash from her phone to overtake the trailer, placing it back in its pile before she moved to the door. She'd have to show Nick when she saw him.

As she grabbed the door handle, Judy stood still, reluctant to open it. Her ears had attenuated to the silence, allowing her to pick up more sensitive noises. There was an animal outside, walking around.

Judy heard hooves meet dirt and a heavy breathing coming from a larger animal. From the sounds it made, she could tell it was easily dozens of times her size. She didn't dare move.

“Yeah, boss, I'm sorry – I lost her,” she could hear. It was the same booming voice she'd heard in the apartment earlier. “I'm at the site right now. I think she must have taken the tunnels...yeah, yeah, I'll get the other teams on it, too. If she goes there, she's dead...Alright, I think you might want to come down here and check up on things...is the time table being moved up? Alright, I'll head down to Central now.”

Judy held her breath, not willing to make a sound while the bull was outside. She could hear him talking, presumably on his phone, stomping around the trailer. Why did he have to come here? As his conversation died down, she could hear him turning around, wandering back in the direction of her apartment. She waited and waited, her heartbeat still racing, until she was absolutely certain that he was gone. When she creaked the door to the trailer open and peaked outside, she was greeted by a black silence. Propping it open all the way, she broke out in a sprint again, heading toward what looked like a crane, with its aircraft warning lights blinking red from up high.

It had been the right move: at the base of the crane was a set of stairs, flanked by partially constructed escalators and a sign that said “Warning: Blasting in Progress”. She ran down into the tunnels, her phone her only guide, and promptly turned right when she made it into the gigantic stone cavity that was to be her neighborhood's station. She knew her way around the city well enough and she knew that if these tunnels took her four kilometers toward the city center, she'd be near Nick's apartment. 

The wound on her arm had begun to heal, the blood congealing throughout the fabric of her shirt. She realized that, when he saw her, Nick would be livid. He would call her names and, most likely, attempt to hide her from the world in order to protect her, despite her protestations, but that didn't matter. Their lives were in danger. She had to find Nick and tell him what just happened. She needed to show him the evidence she just collected and how scared she was and how much she needed him right now. He was her partner, and he needed her as much as she needed him.


	14. The Fox and the Hound

Chapter XIII: The Fox and the Hound

“I think it's telling that, when the chaos at Twentynine Palms unfolded a few days ago, the ZPD couldn't – or wouldn't – control a rowdy, drunk, and disorderly crowd that ended up leaving several animals injured while the SST secured their assigned premises without fail. I think it's telling that the supposed best officers in the city resigned over a corruption investigation. I think it's telling that the bedrock of this city was allowed to rot to such an extent that we have chronic drunkards working in the Major Case Squad. 

“Therefor, in line with the recommendations of the Committee for Public Safety, I have signed legislation curtailing the abusive powers of the ZPD and allowing for the Zootopian Aerospace Corporation's Special Security Team to take over the realm of security and law enforcement throughout the city of Zootopia. Obviously, the police department will still function as an organ of city government, however, much like the rest of the corrupt institutions that existed when I took office two years ago, its structure will be torn down. We will reduce to its shell and we will remake it, as we've attempted to remake this city in the past two years, into a new force reflecting a new Zootopia. I'd like to thank my chief of staff, Cynthia Spots, for shepherding the special legislation through city council on such a short notice. I once again thank the city council for its continued support in my initiatives to root out problem areas of city government and serve the needs of our citizens in a manner which reflects the greatest of our ideals: hope. And I hope that the citizens of Zootopia unite behind my decision as we brace for a more accountable Zootopia. A Zootopia that is newer, brighter, and better than ever before. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the city of Zootopia.”

The clicking and flashing of cameras drowned out the questions from the crowd of assembled journalists, as several animals in suits applauded the mayor from the background, herself turning away and leaving the podium while her chief of staff stepped up to take questions. 

Nick felt the anger inside him boil over as he watched the scene unfold on television, gripping his paws with such force that he could feel his own claws cut into his skin. Saint and Finnick stood by his side, equally engaged in the press conference. 

“That bitch,” Nick said, the alcohol inside him amplifying his rage. He reached his paw out for another Fox Poison, which Saint had readily prepared for him, anticipating his reaction. “She calls me corrupt! She's all but disbanding the ZPD! And she's the one placing all these corporations in power? Where does she get the nerve?” Nick yelled, slamming down his drink and turning the glass upside down on the bar. Saint lit another cigarette with the one already in his mouth, clearly needing the relief. Finnick simply shook his head.

“Guess even the fuzz can't escape a pissed off politician with friends,” the fennec said. “You think your bunny friend knows about this yet?”

“Oh I'm damn sure she knows. Quite frankly I'm surprised she wasn't up there tackling the mayor off that stage,” Nick said. “Give me one of those, will you?” he asked Saint, pointing to the cigarette.

“I thought you quit?” the dog asked, a smile catching his face. “What's the matter? Cat got you all riled up?”

“It's not just the cat,” Nick said, taking the cigarette from Saint and letting the dog light it for him, blowing it up in the air and taking a good, hard look at the florescent light flickering above them. “This entire thing is moving way too fast. You can't even get a group of guys down at the precinct to agree on going to a restaurant at that speed, and the city council just happened to agree to all those bills popping up the same day they were proposed? We didn't even get our pay raises that fast when the Police Animals' Benevolent Association donated to the council during the last election.” Nick's voice was tinged with suspicion and anger, the cigarette barely helping him. He took another drag as Finnick sat up on the bar, looking the larger fox in the face.

“This reeks of big money, Nicky,” Finnic said, shaking his head and staring at the news conference – the ocelot behind the podium taking questions on when the private security teams would be deployed around the city. “Every single animal wrapped up in this case of yours is sitting on a mountain of cash – the only question you gotta ask yourself is where the hell is it going?”

“Yeah, that's what I'm trying to piece together as well. You'd think half a million dollars in campaign contributions would buy the police a little good will,” Nick said, his voice shifting into a dull monotone. His vocal chords, as well as his soul, it seemed, were being worn thin through sheer attrition. How many battles would they have to lose before they finally won? He wondered. “Mayor Felis, the Zootopia Aerospace Corporation, Rickey Mouse, Goldman Yaks, the All Mammal Credit Union – what do they have in common? If we can only find out the missing link in this chain, me and Judy can crack this case and actually have a chance at redeeming ourselves.”

Finnick and Nick sat there in silence while Saint brought his paws to his jowls, losing himself in thought, playing scenarios over in his head before looking at the two foxes in earnest sincerity. “You said it yourself Nicky – campaign contributions.”

“What?” Nick asked, taking his gaze away from the ceiling and looking at the dog in front of him, the smoke from their cigarettes meeting half-way, waltzing in between them and entangling in a cloud that rose with their heartbeats. “You're telling me that Felis is doing this for campaign money when she's already swimming in cash? She practically financed herself in the last campaign – that fact was on every tabloid in the city.”

“Not the mayor. I'm saying what they have in common ought to be campaign contributions. Look, you have all these corporations, unions, and politicians all getting their share of the pie, right? None of them have a damn thing in common. It's not like Zootopia Aerospace deals with the subways or Rickey Mouse has any interest whatsoever in whatever Goldman Yaks does or Mayor Felis knows whatever the hell goes on at some random credit union. But you said yourself they ought to have one thing in common, right? Well it's not going to be their work and it's not going to be personal so it's gotta be political, am I right?” Saint asked, leaning forward onto the bar, his face only a few inches from Nick's. 

“So what are you suggesting, Saint?” Nick asked.

“Follow the money.”

Nick snorted. Even as he gave the same advice to Judy, he'd failed to connect the dots himself. If there was big money involved – and with Goldman Yaks, ZAC, and the unions all involved, there had to be – then naturally, there'd be anomalies in the system. Every single animal and company so far dealt with so much money on any given day that smaller transactions would get lost in a quarterly report or spreadsheet, but they would be there nonetheless, the smoking gun to whoever was pulling the strings. Whoever ordered the hit on the AMCU, whoever altered the transit footage at the railway station, whoever killed Mr. Bos – the evidence would be in the monetary transactions between the animals involved. If he could prove the money trails, he could prove the relationships, and if he could prove the relationships, he would know which animals had the knowledge and access to alter the tapes, disappear the witnesses, hide the evidence, and rack up the bodies. He almost felt like kissing the dog out of thanks.

“Saint, you son of a bitch,” Nick said, putting his cigarette out on the bar, a grin creeping across his face.

“Well, technically speaking, I am,” the dog said, smiling back at him. Finnick stood up, looking up at Nick.

“So, you got a plan now? Or are you still traumatized by being outwitted by a bunny for the past two years?” Finnick said. He was grinning now, as well; the three of them equally engaged to do what they did best: find out who had the money and con the hell out of them. The cumulative experience of over one hundred years of street hustling finally giving Nick the edge he'd need over whoever had it out for him, Judy, and the ZPD. 

“I got a plan, yeah. But first I need to talk to Carrots. She must be back at her place by now, so I think I'll head home and sleep on this. Thanks, you two,” Nick said, waving goodbye at them as he approached the door.

“Hey Nicky, next time the drinks won't be on the house until you find out who the hell keeps messing with you!” Saint yelled. “And bring that bunny back with you. You're a better animal with her around!”

“Thanks, I'll try to. I don't know if I could spend a day without her at this point,” Nick said. He was in high spirits, his face a testament to the power that a few con-artists with some street smarts could piece together what, he was sure, no one at the precinct was able to at the current moment. They were searching for a needle in a haystack: no evidence, no witnesses, no records, and no official backing or authority, but they would crack this case and clear their names, he was sure of it. All he needed to do was get back to his apartment, get on his computer, and start tracking down the money trail that led to the one thing all these different actors had in common. Once he found the common thread, it wouldn't take very long to unravel the entire unholy conspiracy.

Nick was still looking at them when he opened the door and was suddenly thrown into the street. The animal was easily three times his size and clad in all-black composite armor. He hadn't been on the ground for more than a moment before he felt an immense weight on top of him – a hoof burying itself into his muzzle.

“Well, well, well, if it isn't Nick Wilde. Petty criminal, disgraced police officer, and part-time alcoholic, I see? I'll earn a damn medal killing you,” the animal said. The force applied to his face was so great that he could barely open his eyes, only being able to make out the fact that, whoever was on top of him definitely wasn't anyone he recognized. At least it wasn't someone he'd conned out of any money – he'd already be dead if that were the case. 

“I'm flattered you know me by name, most of my sweethearts don't,” Nick said, barely able to mumble the words. The hoof pressed down on his head harder. Nick could feel his skull grinding against the pavement. Any more of this and he'd be done for.

“Get up and get your mouth on that god damn curb. Do it!” the animal said, picking Nick up from the ground and throwing him onto the curb. The force from crashing down on the curb made an audible crack in Nick's arm as he braced himself on his shoulder. Crying out in pain, the animal above used the opportunity to take Nick by the head and force his open jaw onto the curb. “See you in hell, fox,” the animal said, without a hint of magnanimity or mercy. 

At that moment, in the split second before he knew his death would come, Nick learned that, when facing death, one's life didn't flash before you like a grand, award winning movie. His thoughts didn't turn to the case, or to his mother and his idealistic childhood. They didn't turn to his life on the streets and his memories of growing up conning the rabbits in the surrounding factories out of their money. Instead, his thoughts turned to Judy. They turned to the countless days he'd spent with her in their squad car, drinking coffee and waiting for the radio to announce a chase. They turned to those days where, even in their days off, they'd go to an amusement park or a cafe together and talk for hours on end – the particulars of those conversations eluded him in that moment, but he knew that they brought him, and more importantly, her, joy beyond all he could remember. Seeing her in his final moments wasn't such a bad way to die, he'd decided. He waited for the end.

It was in that eternity before his death that Nick heard screaming and an enraged, familiar voice howling from above him. Nick turned his eyes upward, seeing Saint and Finnick wrestling with a rhinoceros against the outside of the bar. Saint had his large, meaty arms around the animal, screaming as he tried to hold him in place, while Finnick was attached to the animal's face, lunging at it with his teeth. Bits of flesh and blood from the rhino came down as Finnick bit down, tearing chunks off in rapid succession.

“You mess with my boy, I bite your damn face off!” Finnick yelled, clawing at the inside of the rhino's mouth as the latter yelled, desperately fighting off the two.

“What the hell are you waiting for, Nicky? Get the hell out of here!” Saint shouted, using the entirety of his body weight to slam the rhino against the building. Doing it was fairly easy to do when the much larger animal was focused on prying the fennec fox away from his face. Even that proved fairly difficult to do as Finnic left no room for error, attacking the animal's face in a mixture of savagery and anger. With the sheer size difference, they all knew that Finnic had to go all-out or die. The fennec decided to go all-out, popping one of the rhino's eyes out with his claws, the larger animal shrieked and fell to the ground, writhing in agony. Nick could only stand up, staring in awe.

“I said get out of here, Nick! Get back to your place! We got this guy! Go!” Saint shouted again, getting up from the ground and kicking the rhino in the torso.

Nick took off in a sprint, unwilling to look back as he heard the pained yelps and shrieks of the rhinoceros. It was doubtful that the rhino would survive the night, he concluded, after Finnic and Saint had seen the animal attack Nick. After spending twenty years with the duo of con-artists, they'd come to think of him as a son. They'd come to his aid as any parent would their child. He'd have to thank them later, when his heart wasn't on the verge of bursting from adrenaline.

As he made his way through the maze of abandoned warehouses and factories, Nick finally had to slow down to a moderate jog, eventually stopping next to a darkened light pole to catch his breath. Despite his daily workouts with Judy, he still couldn't match her exceptional endurance and speed – nature, and especially his hips, had made sure of that. He gasped for air, clutching his chest.

“Shit,” he said to no one in particular, keeling over and hugging the pole for support. “Should not have smoked that cigarette. Idiot fox. Shouldn't have drank so much either, damn it!”

Nick said these things to himself, partially to scold himself, and partially to get a mental grip on the situation. He was running through what had just happened in his head, wondering how the animal had gotten the jump on him. He'd been in the bar, talking shop with Saint and Finnic. He opened the door and the next minute he was on the ground, about to die. Was that accurate? He didn't know. Whatever had happened, it had happened so fast that he was still unsure whether the adrenaline pumping through his veins was from a near-death experience or simply the side effect of something Saint slipped in his drinks. Maybe Fox Poison wasn't just the name of a drink and was actual fox poison? He swore to himself he'd never order the thing again.

Nick stumbled along, gasping for air and clutching his chest. There were bleeding scratches on his head from where the rhino had dug his heels in and where the concrete had scraped fur and skin off. His shoulder hurt like hell – maybe it was broken? Back in the day, he could've found a street doctor on any one of these side alleys to take care of him. Hell, he could've found half of his “clients” sleeping outside of their factories – too drunk to make it back home and too poor to take a day off. Now, silence and darkness greeted him. The streets had no life to them anymore, but they still held many secrets.

Nick continued along the darkened avenue, a few blocks away from his house, passing an unmarked concrete building with unusually large doors and large, metal grates along the top of it. A cooling station for underground tunnel systems – he'd seen structures like this one all around the city. Had this one always been here? He saw quick, jumpy movements coming from the corner of the building across the street. Even with no street lamps and a new moon, he was still a fox, after all, and he had acute night vision. He saw an animal pop out from a door on the side of the building, rushing over towards him. He closed his eyes and held himself. If this was another attacker, he'd be dead for sure. Sitting down on the curb, he wished he had a cigarette, if only to calm himself before the end.

“I'm sorry, Judy,” he said, laying down on the sidewalk and opening his eyes at the night sky above. Twenty years hustling and he'd never feared death. Two years with that bunny and all of a sudden he was wracked with sorrow about always skirting the boundaries with her but never fully developing a relationship with her. They would use their awkward chemistry in their own ways, sometimes managing to flirt with each other in unorthodox ways totally alien to the others' species, but never truly admitting this to each other – not in words, anyway. If he was going to die tonight, he'd die with that regret weighing on his heart. “I'm so sorry, Judy,” he repeated, closing his eyes, waiting for the animal to cross the road. Maybe he deserved this? After all, he'd learned over a lifetime that fighting fate never seemed to work out for him.

“Sorry for what?” he heard, a soft, feminine voice caught his ears, instantly perking his tail and ears off the pavement. He opened his eyes, seeing the rabbit leaning over him, her ears flopping behind her head in curiosity and relief.

“Judy?”

“Nick,” she said, reaching down to lift him up and hug him. He felt a warm, liquid presence on his right shoulder. The warmth tingled the spot he had broken his fall on, the smell wafting up to his nose offended his senses and tug at his curiosity. He looked at Judy's shirt and saw blood covering the left half of it.

“Judy! Oh my God, are you alright?” Nick asked, instantly animated, grabbing her by the shoulders. He pulled back when she winced,

“Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm fine, really,” she said, only half sure of her answer, pulling back from him and taking stock of his own wounds. “What the hell happened to you? Bar fight?” she asked, noticing the gashes on his head and the way he moved away from her when she touched his right shoulder – his ears and tail were tucked close to his body, almost shivering.

“If only,” he said, scratching behind his ears and grinning at her. “You should see the other guy.”

“Spare me the details, Nick. I was attacked and I managed to escape – I was on my way to your apartment through the new tunnel network. That ventilation tower over there was the closest exit to your apartment, by my guess,” Judy said, sitting down on the curb next to him.

“I was attacked, too. This rhino that did this to me was dressed in this really weird uniform,” Nick trailed off, interrupted by Judy.

“Was it all black? Looked like body armor?” she asked, perking her ears up and placing her paws in front of her chest, instantly engaged.

“Yeah, why?”

“The bull that attacked me was dressed in the same thing,” Judy said, looking around, taking stock of the empty buildings around them. This was too exposed. Too many angles of attack and not enough angles of egress. If they were attacked again, here and now, they'd be done for. Nick shook his head, dragging himself to lean against the darkened street lamp next to them.

“So I guess someone has it out for us,” he said the obvious, looking her in the eyes. He could see the twinkle of her violet eyes through the darkness, a direct benefit of his vision. He noticed that there was no fear in her body language. He didn't think he'd ever seen her this excited in years. Not since the Night Howler Incident was she so full of vigor. He was glad for this – if she were any other way, he knew he wouldn't have the energy himself to continue forward. Hustling was easy: at least then you knew why animals wanted to kill you.

“Nick, we need to get to the precinct,” Judy said after a momentary silence. Nick realized he had trailed off and barely said a word to her since studying her in the darkness.

“Why? We need to find a safe haven – somewhere where the attackers won't find us. And I guarantee that's not going to be in civic center.”

“No, Nick. I overheard the animal that attacked me talking to someone on the phone. He said he was going to central. There's only two places in this city that animals call 'central'. Zootopia Central Station and-” she said, trailing off, allowing Nick to finish the sentence.

“And Civic Center Plaza, home of the ZPD and every organ of city government. Either way, if the guy that attacked you is going to either of those places, it can't be good,” he said, standing up and brushing the dust off his pants and tail, looking down the street, up towards the gleaming skyline ahead of them. 

“We need to move,” Judy said, taking his paw and running toward the light. Nick felt himself grunting in approval, running down the abandoned sidewalks in tandem urgency. They had escaped the fire and were heading into the inferno. If the animals who had attacked them were going downtown, they had to be there as well. Too many of their friends depended on both of them to sit them one out. Nick could feel a bump rising in his throat. It wasn't fear, he knew. It wasn't helplessness or anxiety – those emotions he knew intimately. He knew the darkness ahead of him wasn't of his own making, no. As he ran with the rabbit, flying past warehouses and factories and boarded-up bodegas, he knew what this feeling was: purpose. Whatever happened to them along the way, whatever greeted them downtown, he'd protect Judy till the end.

As they crossed the boundary between the factory district and downtown, they heard the wailing of police sirens, echoing against the glass and steel of skyscrapers – a siren song leading them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, this was a really fun chapter to write. For everyone who's been following this story, we've now reached the half-way point in my original outline of the story. That may change, given that there have definitely been chapters that I've written that were totally unplanned and I've scrapped more than a few scenes from the outline, but overall, this chapter (and the two chapters left in this act) cumulatively mark the midway point of our story. 
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading. I hope you've enjoyed.


	15. He Fought the Law

Chapter XIV: He Fought the Law

They wove their wave through downtown, sprinting across avenues to limit their exposure to others; the streets were quiet at this time – the crowds of workers and party-goers having long returned home, resting for the day ahead. Nick and Judy had been a part of that lifestyle once: come into the precinct at six in the morning and leave at six in the evening, a half day of judicial tomfoolery that, Nick had to admit, was part-work and part-play. The relative peace of the civic center area and their iconic status had let them become lazy, never having had a case with so many trip-ups and dangers as the one they currently faced. He wished he still had his badge and gun to wave around. A few animals respected the badge – everyone respected the gun. 

They steadied their pace as they neared civic center, the crowded skyline giving wave to wide avenues and expansive parks lined with the statues of animals long dead, their eyes staring off into the distance as if to signify their glory and declare that this was holy land. A marble horse, rearing its legs and brandishing a sword, clad in armor, greeted them as they passed the stock exchange, rounding the corner to the center of power at the heart of Zootopia. Nick felt the need to talk to his rabbit partner as they stalked between trees and alcoves, as if they were thieves in the night, ready to pounce on their target.

“So what did you find out?” Nick asked her.

“Nothing much. Turns out the city council all but declared war on the ZPD. We've been condemned,” Judy said, rolling her eyes. “I guess saving those animals two years ago didn't buy us out of the doghouse.”

“Well, as it so happens, Mayor Felis just turned over police authority to private security forces. Saw it on ZNN at the bar right after you left,” Nick said. The two had reached the entrance to civic center, the gilded dome of city hall looming over a palisade of trees and fountains. The city was bankrupting itself and the police force was being kicked around, but at the very least, the citizens of Zootopia could take heart that the government's landscaping budget escaped intact.

“Ninth precinct is being disestablished, the ZPD budget is being cut – but why?” Judy asked, ducking under a railing next to a closed bicycle shop, the blood on her shirt giving her a macabre camouflage against the brick facade. The knelt down, facing east, toward the other side of the plaza. One Judicial Center, the city's central courthouse, stood guard against the night – its stately columns contrasting sharply against the shiny, glass walls of Zootopia Police Headquarters, directly across the street. There was a buzz of activity around both buildings, with news trucks from various agencies parked outside the courthouse, lights illuminating its stonework steps and giant, bronze doors. The temple of justice was being overtaken by the vultures.

The duo watched as anchors from each of the major networks filmed in front of the courthouse. ZPD headquarters, on the other hand, was dead quiet, save for several wolves dressed in black armor standing guard at the main doors, assault rifles at the low ready. They looked like they were going to war.

“Can you pull up what's going on on your phone?” Nick asked, reaching over to her, taking her paw. He was careful not to brush up against her injured arm.

“Yeah, give me a second,” she said, reaching into her pocket. She had drained most of her battery using her phone as a flashlight to find her way through the tunnels and she hadn't checked it since she found the emergency exit leading to the ventilation tunnel near Nick's apartment. Pulling up the internet, she went to ZNN's homepage, a litany of headlines mentioning the ZPD attracted her attention:

“ZPD on the defensive after suspect death”

“Disgraced officers may face indictment, DA says”

“Chief Bogo indicted in the death of suspect at Ninth Precinct – arrest warrant issued”

She clicked on the last link, providing her a live feed from the ZNN truck just across from the courthouse. She turned down the volume, reaching into her pockets to grab her headphones, splitting them with Nick so they could both hear the reporting from ZNN's star snow leopard anchor, Janet Uncia. 

“-and the charges against him were approved yesterday evening, Peter. As you and our viewers know, this case has moved extremely fast, with the district attorney moving to arrest Chief Bogo only three days after he was brought in for questioning regarding Mr. Weaselton's death,” the reporter said, talking to Peter Moosebridge in the ZNN studio. She could hear Nick sigh as he heard the reports.

“It's weasel-ton, not wessel-ton. The least they could do is get his name right,” Nick said. Judy hadn't been as phased by the news of the weasel's death as she should have been as the police officer who arrested him, and the one who guaranteed his safety. She never thought how Nick had taken it, knowing the animal for so long and being the one to sit down with his, offering his paw in comfort. It must have taken its toll. She could see Nick's eyes flare with sorrow and anger with each passing second.

“Janet, do you have any additional information on the scene? Any new developments since the DA unsealed the arrest order earlier tonight?”

“No, Peter – the Special Security Team has been placed in charge of this investigation and has basically overridden the ZPD here. There's a genuine sense among the staff that was gathered outside the courthouse earlier that tomorrow's Zootopia will look a lot different than the one we live in tonight. Private security teams were dispatched to Chief Bogo's house earlier tonight and we are waiting on their – wait, here they are, coming down the road. They've just turned the corner.”

Nick and Judy looked up from the phone toward city hall. Black vans and armored vehicles made their way around the roundabout encircling city hall, sirens hastily attached to their roofs, flashing red and blue lights as they crawled, nay, paraded down the avenue toward the courthouse. The convoy stopped, drivers of the vehicles exiting and standing at perfect attention as several armed guards made their way to the armored truck in the center. As the rear hatch was released, they could see several wolves in armor escorting a buffalo dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Chief Bogo.

“Oh my God. Chief,” Judy said, placing her paw over her mouth. 

Nick brought his arm around her. It was a small consolation, but one that she sorely needed. They had live access to the unfolding scene in front of their faces – they didn't need validation from ZNN, but kept watching anyway to keep appraised of the audio. They were too far away to hear anything meaningful beyond the shouts and scuffles of the reporters angling to get a word in from the chief.

“Mr. Bogo, how do you respond to the allegations that your officers were behind the suspect's death?”

“Mr. Bogo, how will you be pleading in the corruption case against you?”

“Mr. Bogo, a comment on the state of the ZPD after the latest string of bills from the city council?”

The questions were curt and fair, but Nick and Judy couldn't help but feel mutually disgusted by their hounding. The police department was being gutted before their eyes and arguably the city's best cop was being led away in chains by a hired security force and no one bat an eye save to ask him questions that wouldn't lead anyone to the root of the problem: why. Why was the police department being targeted? It was an easy pill to swallow for the average citizen, seeing the chaos at Sahara Square and the deaths around the city through the lens of a TV screen, but to Nick and Judy – the only officers who had lived through each and every significant event in the city in the last two weeks – the perspective was a lot difference. The public saw another corrupt agency being taken down by the mayor. The two ex-cops saw a mystery that just seemed to get deeper, and the casualties climb higher, each passing day. Judy shut the phone off, looking up at Nick.

“Nick, what are we going to do? We can't just leave him there!”

Nick looked lost. He wasn't entirely sold on the idea of helping the chief – not after the unsanctimonious fashion in which he tossed them from the police force three days ago. He did have an ego, after all. Even still, the chief didn't deserve being paraded around the courthouse in an orange jumpsuit – a trophy for whoever had decided that the ZPD wasn't worth its merit. 

“Normally I'd agree, Carrots; but what are we going to do? Bust into the courthouse and bring him out? Saying 'hey, you remember those dirty cops that you just condemned a few days ago? Surprise! It's us',” Nick said, sarcasm waxing off his tongue. Judy's ears fell down behind her head, her eyes digging sharply into him.

“Don't be like that, we've got to try something,” Judy said, looking around the plaza, looking for concealment and cover areas before standing up, taking her headphones with her. They pinched Nick's ears as she stood, breaking out into a sprint across the empty plaza.

“Hey, Carrots!” Nick tried calling out, unsuccessful. “Shit,” he muttered to himself, taking off after her. The last thing he needed tonight was Judy getting killed, or worse, arrested. He was sure that either outcome would be inevitable if she kept running toward the courthouse. He joined her when she dove behind a set of palm tree planters near the ZPD headquarters building.

“Carrots, what the hell are you doing?”

“I've got a plan,” she said, as if that ought to have been obvious to Nick.

“Yeah, and what is that, exactly? Get yourself shot on national TV running up the steps of that courthouse?”

“No, we're not breaking into the courthouse,” she said, pointing her paws over to the ZPD headquarters. The guards had relaxed their position since the convoy pulled up. She could see several of them grouping around the entrance smoking cigarettes and laughing. 

“Oh, that's just as good – two disgraced cops breaking into the police headquarters,” Nick whispered, raising his paws to his head. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “But we're not going to learn anything, especially why Chief Bogo was arrested, if we don't start acting like cops and investigating.”

“We're not cops!” Nick said, bringing his paws back down to his sides. Judy studied his face. It wasn't explicit, but there it was, a pained expression of fear and anguish washing over him, letting her read him like a dime-a-day suspect. She was almost disappointed. 

“Maybe you're not, but I was born for this, Nick. I'm not going to let them get to me. Are you?” she asked, taking stock of the situation before sprinting out from behind their cover, dashing over the a parked car by the side of the road. All she needed was to get to the other side without being seen and she'd be able to sneak her way in.

“Damn it, Carrots,” Nick said, following her, his tail tucked between his legs as he hopped over to the same car she hid behind. They waited for a few moments, studying the way the guards moved and the line of sight of the convoy drivers. They watched as the reporters hounded the procession, distracting several of the SST soldiers. They saw Chief Bogo being led into the courthouse. All they needed was a single moment to dart across the road – a spark to light the fire. 

They found their chance when Chief Bogo, being led quickly inside, slipped on the stairs in front of several of the reporters, causing them to crowd around him and get inside the protective security cordon the guards had set up. Hearing a whistle, several drivers from the convoy rushed up the stairs, while the guards in front of ZPD headquarters rushed across the road to help, leaving a token force of three to guard the main entrance. Jackpot.

As the group from ZPD headquarters ran passed them, Judy took Nick's paw and ran across the road with every ounce of energy she had. Nick could barely keep up, only owing to the fact that he wouldn't let go of Judy's paw until they were out of this mess. Successfully making it across the street, they found themselves on a side street next to ZPD headquarters, near the entrance to the garage. No doubt that entrance would be guarded as well. Thankfully, Judy knew a way inside that subverted the main garage entrance.

ZPD motor pools were often drab, concrete boxes built for the simple purpose of housing vehicles and not much else. Larger precincts, like central headquarters, had multi-level parking. Owing to the expansion and contraction of concrete in winter and summer months – even Zootopia's faulted environmental engineering systems couldn't keep Mother Nature at bay entirely, and only Sahara Square had the ability to break lukewarm on a snowy, winter day – the garages were often built with slight gaps between concrete floor plates. They weren't exceptionally large – only big enough to accommodate about a foot of expansion each year – but they were large enough for a small enough animal to exploit. A rabbit, for example. 

They stalked over to the entrance of the garage, seeing an SST soldier guarding it from inside the booth that Francine normally occupied. Motioning with her paws, Judy asked for a lift from Nick, who gladly acquiesced, vaulting her atop one of the ledges of the building and allowing her to stalk around the exterior one story off the ground. She was exceptionally exposed. If they were caught now, they'd have nowhere to run and no lawful explanation for their movements. As she approached one of the windows to the second floor of the garage, she saw it, right by one of the support pillars: a small gap in between the edge of the building and the floor plate, stretching from one pillar to the next. Sitting down on the ledge, she eased herself into the gap before she felt herself falling, landing on her feet on the main floor. Her ankles hurt, but that was a small price to pay for access to the only place she'd ever felt at ease. Her home away from home.

Skulking over to the other side, she found one of the exterior steel doors that allowed officers to come and go without passing through security and pushed down on the crash bar. She found Nick waiting on the other side.

“Miss me?” he asked, joining her inside the building. Judy nodded her head, taking his paw again and running further inside. They'd managed to avoid security so far – no need to put themselves in danger by lingering about with the guards present.

As they made their way through the tunnel that led them to the boiler room and their former office at the Major Case Squad, they saw the same state of general decay that greeted them so long ago. It felt like years since they were assigned to Major Cases, being removed from their corner office by the chief in a fit on anger over their disregard for protocol. It had only been four days, of course, and the station was, much like themselves, essentially the same, but the decay felt different this time. More pronounced – as if crying out to them that the entire precinct would come crashing down around them at any moment and they had only need look at the signs. 

Nick shuddered. This place, he thought, was now too much for him to handle. If they ever redeemed themselves, the only reason he'd ever consider rejoining the ZPD would be to keep Judy out of this kind of place again. To keep the broken pipes and calcium stains and toxic mix of decay and urine away from her. She deserved more than that. Judy, he noticed, was moving at a much faster pace than usual, her eagerness blazing a path through the basement, up the stairs, and into the empty atrium. 

The hall was dead. Only the lighting illuminating the ZPD's logo and motto behind Clawhauser's desk functioned, it seemed, bearing witness to how utterly sunken the police department had become in only a few days. It didn't matter if the entire city depended on them. At the end, they were all dependent on the whims of the council, who sought fit to replace them in all but name. Nick wondered if there was even a ZPD left to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another chapter where I got to the end and felt that the manuscript was simply too long and I was missing out on a good transition. As a result, the next chapter ought to be finished by tomorrow - it's practically almost done, I just have to tighten it up and get the characters where they need to go. 
> 
> As a result of me splitting chapters due to scene length, I've decided to lengthen the story from five acts to six. The next chapter will be the last chapter of the third act. I hope you've been enjoying it so far. I know I have.
> 
> Also, on a side note, I write while listening to music because it helps me set the mood. While listening to one song, I realized that my planned ending for this fanfic ought to be re-organized entirely, and so I'll be taking a few days to re-outline the next three acts based on where I want this to finally end, so the fourth act chapters may see some schedule slip as a result.
> 
> Once again, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Thank you!


	16. The Big Bang Theory

Chapter XV: The Big Bang Theory

It was at that moment that Judy's thoughts turned elsewhere. Her mind was singularly focused on getting to Chief Bogo's office and finding clues to link the pieces together. What would she find there? And how would Nick take it? She shook herself mentally over the case. Nick had been by her side for the better part of two years, had been her partner, her friend, her confidant, and, at times, her date. Why was she only now considering how he was taking being fired from the police force? She needed to clear their names, to vindicate them – for herself, to restore her dream and purpose of being a police officer; and for him, to invalidate the tired notion that he was nothing but a career criminal. She couldn't bear the thought of him being hurt again.

They bound up the stairs to the second floor, passing the conference room where their careers had ended and towards the executive offices. They passed the offices of their friends – detectives, sergeants, special advocates – until they reached a singular office at the corner of the building, easily twice as large as the others. Unlike the other rooms, this one didn't carry a name. It simply read: Chief. Bogo's name had already been scraped off the frosted glass.

Judy tried the door and found it locked, prompting Nick to shake his head at her, easing her out of the way as leaned down to try the door. He could feel her foot tapping the ground in anxiety and frustration, a beat gathering in tempo by the second.

“Silly rabbit,” he said, wagging a digit at her, easily looking amused at her expense. Reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wallet, he took a credit card and slid it into the door frame. A visibly annoyed Judy pouted at him as the door clicked. “Tricks are for-”

He could barely finish his joke before she rushed inside. This was her nature, he knew – always rushing. Something else also took hold of her, an urgency that spoke to him. This case was personal, and Judy was pouring all of her energy into finding whatever clues she could from the chief's office. Nick wagged his tail, excited, stalking into the room and joining Judy behind the chief's desk. If they were going to break the law, they were going to do it right.

The chief's desk was spartan, a testament to his own will. Nothing adorned it but a computer and a picture of his family. Judy tried logging onto the computer, sighing when she reached a password screen.

“Nick, you wouldn't happen to know anything the chief might use as a password, would you?” she asked.

“No need, Carrots,” he said, nudging her gently out of the way as he took the keyboard into his paws. He restarted the computer, accessing the boot menu and entering in the factory default administrator settings. Twenty years on the street had taught him that government officials rarely, if ever, changed the default admin settings on their work computers. To his dismay, the chief was one of them. “That's a shame. You'd figure the chief of police would have changed the settings. At least it makes our job easier,” he said, stepping out of the rabbit's way.

“How come every time we need to do something illegal, you're always the one who knows best?”

“Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to, Carrots,” he said, patting her on the top of the head. “Besides, you know it's one of the things you love about me.” His mouth formed a wide-eyed smile, baring all his teeth when she rolled her eyes at him. He knew she adored that part of him, even if she couldn't stand it for more than a few minutes at a time. That, he admitted to himself, was why he stayed on the force, even when days turned to weeks turned to months without any substantial cases falling on their laps. He certainly couldn't complain about lack of work now. He sat down in the chief's chair as Judy worked her magic.

As Nick spun himself around in the chair, Judy was busy accessing the chief's personnel files and email. She groaned silently as she saw he had tens of thousands of unopened emails, including from several officers in the department. Locking her search options to emails within the last few days, she saw that most of the unopened emails had subject lines with their names in them from their fellow officers, alongside very curt words for the chief. The decision to fire them from the police department wasn't a popular one, she saw, and several officers, including a few senior detectives and sergeants, and even their lieutenant, had threatened to resign if they weren't reinstated. At least their coworkers cared.

Unopened email after unopened email revealed nothing. Judy was about to give up on her search of his personal files before she checked the chief's opened email folder, instantly noticing that, unlike his unread inbox, there was only a single email thread in this one. She clicked on it, urging Nick to come by her side as she did. Even though they weren't in any danger, he put his arm around her – given the contents, they would both need the reassurance of their partner.

_“To: Bogo_  
_From: CS_  
_cc: LF, RM, AW..._  
_Subject: [blank]_

_Rest assured we're doing our part to keep your family safe. All you have to do is yours. Attached is a copy of the evidence we've accrued against Officers Hopps and Wilde. Once you agree to their dismissal, we will agree to the term outlined in our last meeting.”_

“Nick, do you see this?” Judy asked him, disbelief quickly turning to rage. They had their smoking gun.

“Click on the next one in the chain,” he said, transfixed on the screen. She did.

_“From: Bogo_  
_To: CS_  
_Subject: [blank]_

_I did my part – you said you'd release them. If I go home and they're not there tonight, you don't want see how this goes down.”_

_“Bogo, if you do anything not previously agreed upon, we won't be able to assure your family's safety. Or yours, for that matter.”_

_“I let go two good cops! I did my part!”_

_“Your part isn't over yet, Bogo. Tonight.”_

“Nick, look,” Judy said, pointing at the time stamp for the latest email. It was sent this morning. “These are all from the last four days.”

“You think we can find more if delete the time filter?”

“Let's try it,” Judy said, deleting the filter from the inbox and looking back at the email thread from the very beginning. The first was sent two weeks ago – the day after the incident at the train station:

_“Bogo, why haven't those problem cops been dealt with?”_

_“They messed up. They're not endemic of a wider problem and I've already spoken with them. There's no need to turn your crusade toward the police department.”_

_“And even though charges are pending against them?”_

_“They're good cops. I wouldn't take them off the force if my life depended on it.”_

_“We'll see, Bogo. We'll see.”_

“Nick,” Judy said, stepping away from the computer. Nick wrapped his arms around her, putting his muzzle on top of her head. So chief has tried to stick out for them after all? He supposed the chief wasn't so bad after all. Nick looked over to the picture of Chief Bogo and his family on the desk: it must have been from twenty years ago, given that the chief was dressed in a patrolman's uniform and much, much smaller. His wife stood by his side, a small buffalo child between them. Nick noticed that the wife and child's eyes were burned out, as if some animal had put out a cigarette on their profiles.

“Judy, look,” Nick said, picking up the picture and showing her. Her could see her nose twitch and feel her tail thrashing against his body. She was scared.

“So Chief was pressured into letting us go,” Nick said, still holding onto Judy. The two of them stood there watching the screen, partly out of curiosity and mostly out of horror.

“And they have his family,” Judy said, reaching to the mouse and hovering over the screen names of the animals cc'd in the exchange. She scrunched her face in frustration when she found that all the email addresses had been censored, listing only a series of random digits connected to a proxy server. “We can't even glean who they are from these emails.”

“But we can still collect them as evidence. Give me your phone,” he said, undoing his arms from her and reaching his paw out. She gave it to him, watching him disassemble the casing and remove the memory card from the housing. He scanned the keyboard, finally finding what he was looking for at the back, plugging it in and leaning down in front of her to save the files on it.

“By the way, Nick, when I was being chased by that bull outside my apartment, I ran into a construction site and found Rickey Mouse's trailer. I took a photo of a form I saw in there – it should be on that memory card as well.”

“Oh yeah? Let's check it out while we're still here,” he said, opening the card's files in the documents folder. From the thumbnails, it looked like Judy had hundreds of photos on her phone. He noticed that most of them held quite a high proportion of gray and red. He felt himself blushing, resisting the urge to click on them. Judy preferred to take photos – all of Nick's precious memories were stored in his head, the one's with Judy prominently close to his heart. He didn't mind that she took so many pictures of them, whether it was on patrol or at a cafe, but Nick found a higher degree of intimacy in holding those moments in immaterial form; the particular scene didn't matter, only the time spent with her.

He found the latest picture taken and opened it. Unlike the others, taken in stellar high definition, this photograph was obviously taken in a dark room, the grain and color noise dotting the picture made the fine print hard to read, but Nick could make it out well enough.

“Bill of lading issued by Zootopia Aerospace Corporation to the Zootopia Transit Authority for the trans-shipment of one thousand kilograms of ammonium nitrate,” Nick said, his voice slowing as he read the last few words, eyes widening in horror. “Judy, what the hell is this?” he asked, turning around, grabbing her by the shoulders. She winced in pain, crying that Nick was hurting her, and he backed off as he saw her eyes twitch. He'd been taken by surprise, but he needed to know. What the hell was this stuff being shipped through the city, and especially underground, through barely reinforced, freshly-dug tunnels? Nick didn't like it at all.

“I'm sorry, Judy, but I really need to know anything else you caught at that dig site,” he said, his eyes wild.

“Nick, I thought it was strange, too, but why are you acting so weird? It's just a fertilizer – my parents use it on their farm all the time,” she said.

“No, Judy, it's not just a fertilizer. When you mix ammonium nitrate with fuel, you make a bomb. A thousand kilograms is enough to blow up an entire city block or bring down a skyscraper,” Nick said, his paws tightening around themselves and his gaze fixing into hers. “What's more, it's being brought into the city by the same company that just ousted the ZPD.”

Judy's eyes widened. “What is it doing in the city?” she asked, her voice raising itself in alarm. “Nick, we have to tell someone! There's so many animals in this city-” her voice trailed off, doing quick math in her head. “Nine million animals in this city. Ten thousand per square kilometer – and that's just residents. Nick, if it went off in the middle of a work day-”

Nick cut her off. He didn't need bunny multiplication to know the consequences. “Tens of thousands would die.”

They stared at the bill of lading on the screen, holding each other. Judy spoke up, looking up at her fox partner. “Do you think this has anything to do with our murder?” she asked.

“I'm sure of it. Question is, why did Mr. Bos have to die? And what was it that those witnesses knew that they were disappeared? And who the hell called that private ambulance in the first place?” Nick said, scratching his ears. Judy had noticed that Nick had a tendency to do that whenever he was frustrated. Reaching up, she brushed his paw away from his head, scratching behind his ears for him. She could see him calming down, his mind churning again, before he looked down at her again.

“I have an idea,” he said, bringing the chief's chair over to the computer, sitting down and cracking his knuckles. He'd have to be quick – they didn't have all night. “We need to know where that stuff was sourced.”

Judy, now taller than Nick, continued scratching his head while he sat at the desk, frantically typing information into various police search engines, back-tracing the transit logs from the bill of lading. It wasn't long before he was able to find the source of the chemical.

“Judy, look at this,” he said, motioning for her to look over his shoulder. “Warrens-Den Fertilizer Factory, owned by the Amami Chemical Corporation.” Nick slapped his paw to his forehead, leaning back in the chair. “They're the largest chemical company in the country.”

Judy placed her head on his, looking at the screen. “I know that name,” she said, pointing at the name of the factory. “Warrens-Den is a factory town not far from Bunnyburrow.”

“Are you serious?” he said, tilting his head upward, their eyes inches away from one another.

“Yeah – I even have a few siblings that work at the factories over there. Carrot farming doesn't bring in as much money as working there, so a few of my brothers left home for Warrens-Den to bring back some extra cash for the family.”

“I don't suppose you could call them, could you?” Nick asked.

“Nick, it's two in the morning. How are we-”

She paused mid-sentence. Nick had noticed it, too. A flash popped up on the screen as the email client self-refreshed, a notification popped up in the lower right corner. The message was untitled, it seemed – sender unknown.

“Open it,” she said.

Nick obliged, clicking on the notification. It was a sparse message, but one which forced Nick to rip the memory card out of the computer and send them sprinting out of the chief's office: “I see you.”

Nick and Judy ran through the upper halls of the police headquarters, the fox leading the way, owing to the darkness. They could heard shouts coming from the lobby below them. Assault rifles were being cocked.

“How did they find us?” Judy asked, easily keeping pace with the fox in speed but, unable to see in the darkness, relied on holding his paw to make her way around.

“SST must have been monitoring chief's computer,” he said, running down a flight of stairs leading to one of the emergency exits. “It was only a matter of time before we got found out. Turning right!” he shouted to the rabbit behind him, ducking right without breaking speed as they approached an intersection in the ground floor hallways. The heavy, metallic clacking of rifles smacking against body armor echoed throughout the building. They could hear doors being smashed.

Nick took another turn, this time without warning Judy, bringing them down a short hallway with a red exit sign at the end of it. Smashing through the crash door, they were instantly drowned in red light as the alarm systems in the building kicked on. Sirens sounded and reverberated throughout the hall, echoing into the streets against the facade of neighboring building. If they had barely escaped detection before, they'd set off a virtual hunt now.

“This way!” Judy said, breaking Nick's hold on her and taking off down a cobblestone street behind the headquarters, away from civic center. Running down the sidewalk, they could hear whistles being blown and the heavy engines of armored vehicles being started, likely coming from the courthouse. Judy took a left down an alley, forcing Nick to slide into it and break his momentum against a wall with his injured shoulder. He shouted out in pain, struggling to keep up, gripping his shoulder with his free paw. He could free blood coursing down his right arm.

“Judy, where are we going!” he shouted ahead to the bunny. Expecting a response, he was annoyed when she didn't answer. The only clear thing he was able to make out was that she was gaining speed and unresponsive. Nick knew she was in the right: they had to get out of civic center fast. That knowledge didn't stop him from wanting to know what, exactly, was Judy's plan by darting around the back alleys and brick stone ways of Zootopia's oldest district. The centuries-old history of civic center and the Watering Hole passed them by in blurred motions. As they vaulted over illegally placed dumpsters, Nick knew they were in Pandatown – they'd run at least five kilometers if that was the case, all in the span of time it usually took him to get dressed and out the door in the morning. He felt his heart pounding against the walls of his chest.

Judy made no effort to slow down or even look behind her, determined to get to her destination, wherever that was. She ran with a tenacity that Nick had never seen before. She'd never run at full tilt because she never had to – all the criminals they'd caught up to that point had been slower.

It was when they crossed Agracia Street and turned west that he knew where they were going. Bounding across the tree-lined avenue, they made their way into a grand, brick plaza – the start of this mess: Zootopia Central Station. Continuing at full sprint, Judy ran up to one of the doors, yanking it open, waiting for Nick.

“Come on, come on!” she shouted, using her paws to issue urgency, as if waving at the air would somehow increase his speed. They made their way into the station, Nick allowing her to take the lead. On their way down the stairs, they saw an elderly transit authority officer asleep at his desk. Nick couldn't help but smile. The council had forgotten to transfer the ZTAPD's authority to its private contractors – transit cops still owned the terminals.

On the lowest level of the station was a single intercity train, blowing its whistle. Nick looked over at the scheduling board as they ran down the stairs. It was an overnight local train, heading to Watership, Zootopia's sister city to the southwest. Judy ran inside as Nick was forced to jump in between the closing doors, just missing the departure time. The train whistle sounded a few more times before they could feel the train's massive modified jet engines pulling them forward. Nick stood up, brushing the dust off of his pants and leaning against the carriage, catching his breath.

“Judy, why did we just run seven kilometers to catch a train that was two kilometers away?” he asked in between panting. He noticed that her breathing, while heavy itself, was much steadier. She was clearly built for distance, it seemed.

“We had to lose them,” she said, propping herself up against the wall opposite Nick. “And besides, I had to kill some time. An intercity train leaves for Watership every hour, on the hour. We had to catch this train.”

“Okay, but why this one? Where are we going? Watership is almost four hundred kilometers away.”

“Not Watership,” she said, standing tall, wrapping her arms around him. She needed to feel him, to know that he was there with her and that she hadn't lost him on the frantic run over to the station. She could feel him pet her head and he struggled to breathe, his breath tickling her ears. They'd almost lost everything today when they were discovered in the police headquarters. She couldn't have that. They couldn't have him.

“Then where?” he asked, staring out the window as the train passed under a border tunnel emerging in the Rain-forest District. The roar of heavy rain overtook the carriage as it moved through the jungle, picking up speed it went.

“Bunnyburrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes the third act. I wonder what awaits our heroes in Bunnyburrow? 
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Expect to see the beginning of the fourth act in the next few days.


	17. Country Roads

Chapter XVI: Country Roads

It was the conductor who woke them an hour into their journey, less concerned about their lack of tickets than he was squeamish about the bloodstains covering both of their shirts. He gave them a look that echoed disgust a fear, holding out a paw to indicate that they were getting blood on the cushioned seats. The pair hastily apologized, accepting a blanket from the short, stocky rabbit working the overnight shift, and, after Nick had paid for their tickets to Bunnyburrow, had returned to their seats. Judy laid her head against Nick's shoulder – his good one – and took pause. It had been a while since she could close her eyes and relax. Nick wrapped an arm around her, leaning his head back into the seat, sighing. 

“Bunnyburrow, huh?” he mumbled, trying to stay awake. By now, the adrenaline had worn off and they were both drifting in and out of sleep. 

“Yeah. You've never been?” she asked.

“Nope. Not once. Never set a foot outside Zootopia. I have to be honest with you, Carrots, this will be my first time anywhere near a farm,” he said. 

Judy half laughed and half sighed into his chest. “I think you'll like it. It's quieter than Zootopia. Let's you think. In all honesty, I haven't visited my parents as often as I should have,” she said. Nick opened his eyes, seeing guilt and nostalgia wash over her face in rapid succession. With the way the case had unfolded over the past few weeks, he'd grown used to seeing Judy's emotions run all over the place, from ecstatic to catatonic. This was the first time he'd seen her at her old self since the assault charges against Mr. Bos were dropped. The civilian Judy – the one he'd been fooling around with for years.

Had this been any other case, Nick doubted that they would've had the chance to be this intimate. They were colleagues, partners, friends – even the occasional date whenever the opportunity arose. They had accompanied each other twice to the annual Police Animals' Benevolent Association Ball. Both times Judy had bought a stunning, form fitting dress, complimenting the color of her eyes and contrasting with her fur to such an effect that he had to call a taxi after their larger colleagues had bought her one too many drinks. Twice, Nick had rented a cheap tuxedo, still working with the courts to pay his back taxes owed after twenty years of hustling. And twice, he was reminded, that the life he'd come to adopt within the boundaries of the law was worth its weight in gold what he had left behind. He studied her face, seeing that she was still on the margins of consciousness, and spoke up.

“So what's in Bunnyburrow? Why the family reunion all of a sudden?” he asked.

“We can interview my brothers who work at the chemical plants directly about the explosive fertilizer when we get there,” she said, barely breaking a mumble. “Plus, we need to cool off. I can't believe I broke into the ZPD. What's wrong with me?” she said, her voice fading off. “This case, Nick – this case is-”

“I know, Carrots. I know. Get some sleep, will you?” he said, patting her on the head. She didn't need his permission to oblige, quickly falling asleep. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Nick's thoughts turned inward.

Corporations, unions, politicians; murders, robberies, and assaults; missing evidence, disappeared witnesses, and a war on the police; and all of them strung together in a deep web of conceit that was so well coordinated that Nick knew it that it was connected. Each event led to the next. The entire thing was a play – a conspiracy – and every player was an actor, having their entrances and exits. All of them played a vital role. “Follow the money,” he whispered to himself, concentrating, creating a mental white board in his head, writing on it as he thought.

There was Benjamin Bos, the source of this madness, assaulting another yak – and fellow Goldman Yaks executive – in this middle of a crowded railway station. The evidence and witnesses from that event disappeared. The trail ended there, as did Mr. Bos's life a few days later, dumped in Tundra Town, unseen by Mr. Big's goons – most of whom were now in prison. A complete shake-up of the local community that faulted several of the mayor's supporters into positions of economic power in the district.

Then there was Rickey Mouse, who ordered the hit on the AMCU after Mr. Bos failed to acquire it and who had threatened – successfully, it seemed – Duke Weaselton's life. Union boss and overseer of practically every transit worker in the city who could possibly alter the traffic cameras and destroy the evidence they needed against Mr. Bos and his murderer. He'd won his transit contract through the Mammal Inclusion Program – the same one that Judy and Nick had been asked to resign their badges for in order to lead shortly before they were forcibly removed from the force.

Finally, there was the ammonium nitrate being shipped through the tunnels. Drug and counterfeit goods trafficking was supposed to end after the mayor's transparency initiative forced most transit officials to resign in disgrace after they'd been caught acting as couriers for Mr. Big's crime syndicate.

Mr. Big. Nick's head snapped to attention, putting the pieces together in his mind, thinking back to their time at the crime boss's arctic villa. “I know these animals,” he had said. At the time, Judy and Nick had assumed that he was talking about Bos's murderers. It could be that he was, but it dawned on him that there were only a few animals intimately familiar with the smuggling trade in Zootopia, and Mr. Big was one of them. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that Big himself wasn't involved in this mess – for all the violence that he undertook as a means of ensuring his grip on Tundra Town, Mr. Big never fooled around with deals that could earn him a stay at Royal Prison. No, the shrew wasn't trafficking the explosives, but he knew who was. Nick needed to connect the dots: prove the relationships. He still didn't have all the clues, but he could feel them getting closer by the minute – feel it in his bones. A smile crept up on his face as he fell asleep.

The train continued to roll through the night, Zootopia giving way to suburbs, and suburbs to pastures, pastures to forests. The city slipped away, with all its characters and foibles, and forced the train into a wonderland of dancing light and darkness. On an overcast night like tonight, one could see the nightglow of Zootopia's urban landscape reflecting off of the clouds. Bright, laser and spotlight light shows danced and dueled with each other, betraying the location of the city's most popular nightclubs. Even here, way out in the countryside, among the seldom visited burrows and warrens that dotted the hills, Zootopia's grand presence could be seen and felt. Only when the sun came up, rising behind the train on the eastern horizon, did the dancing end – the city finally finding its peace, postponing the party and getting back to work. 

So, too, did they. The conductor nudged them awake shortly before they arrived at Bunnyburrow station. They looked out the window in tandem, watching the train pull up to the aging brick and mortar structure. There weren't enough animals on the platform to justify this station's existence, betraying Bunnyburrow's continual recession from the edges of relevance. Nick rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as Judy stretched her arms. Their wounds had congealed and the blood on their clothes had dried – a crusty crimson marred the seat they occupied. 

“So this is Bunnyburrow, huh?” Nick said, nudging Judy in the ribs. “I thought it was just make-believe.”

“Oh, ha-ha, Nick,” Judy snapped, her ears fully erect and her eyes burrowing holes into his. He couldn't help but sneak a laugh at her expense. “I'll have you know that Bunnyburrow is the largest producer of carrots in the province.”

“Sure seems like it,” Nick said, helping her up from the seat as they left the train. He could see the conductor frantically flailing about in the corner of his eye, desperately trying to juggle a plastic sheet and biohazard sign for their seat. “Does your family know we're coming?”

“No, and I'd rather keep it that way – at least for now,” she said, motioning to their clothes. “I'd like to get back and change without having to explain to my parents why me and my fox partner are covered in blood.”

“Point taken, Carrots. That's not exactly a sign of a healthy relationship,” he said, only partly in jest. Again, as before, she shot him a dark glance, rapidly tapping her on the platform, forcing him to apologize. She sighed and took his paw as they wandered through the station, curious workers and passengers alike looking on at the bloodied pair.

“So where's your house? Farm? Thing?” Nick asked, stumbling over the right terminology for her home. Judy laughed, rolling her eyes, using her free paw to point to a nearby hill.

“Right over that hill,” she said, taking point, dragging Nick through the center of town. Bunnyburrow had been built around a central square and marketplace; a statue of its founders stood prominently in the middle of a cobblestone plaza, their faces eroded by time. Though most of the town's open-air stalls had been replaced by actual storefronts long ago, Judy still saw several of her childhood friends and neighbors as she walked through, almost all of them stopping what they were doing to watch the two walk through town. So much for subtlety. 

“You know them?” he asked as she waved to a group of rabbits and sheep attending a nearby cabbage stall, their mouths agape as they watched the two pass by. 

“Old friends,” she said, looking up at him.

“Think they're staring because of the blood or because of the rabbit and fox holding paws?” he asked, grinning. 

“Oh, a little from column A, a little from column B,” she said, smiling. “Bunnyburrow isn't Zootopia, you know. Animals here are a little old-fashioned. Plus the last time I walked around all bloodied up, it was just ketchup.”

“Ketchup? Oh now this is a story I've never heard before – you're going to have to tell me this one, Carrots. I'm not going back to Zootopia without it,” he said.

She regaled him with her childhood in Bunnyburrow, beginning with the school play she'd been a part of seventeen years ago. She told him how she had always wished for a world where prey and predator lived in peace. She told him of her constant dream and ambition of joining the police force – of ruined adolescent relationships and struggling with part-time jobs to pay for study materials for the police academy entrance exam. She told him that, technically speaking, Bunnyburrow's population was ten times larger than Zootopia's, owing to the magic of consolidated townships and the high proportion of rabbits. She told him these things and more, and he, in turn, swallowed them, learning about her hometown in earnest. He seemed genuinely interested – genuinely cared – about the way she had lived her life. Her roots, she realized, had sunk themselves into Nick as well. As they passed a gas station, they noticed a large billboard promoting a Gazelle concert in the area only a few days away.

“Hey, wasn't Clawhauser talking about this a few weeks back?” Nick asked, pointing to the sign.

“Oh! Come to think of it, he was! You know, it'd be nice to go if we got the time. It's been a while since we haven't been, you know-”

“Chasing ghosts and fleeing murderers?” Nick asked. “It would be, but let's see what we can find out about this factory first. I'd be willing to bet that the sales receipts and delivery logs will tell us more about what Zootopia Aerospace is planning on doing with all that fertilizer.”

“Look at you, all primed and ready for work,” Judy said. She couldn't help but shake her head at him as they crested the hill. Normally, it was Nick who'd want to take things easy. With a murder to solve and their lives at stake, it seemed he'd finally been kicked into real police work – she was almost impressed. Almost. It had taken him long enough. They passed a gas station manned by a lone goat, sitting squarely in a plastic chair chewing a blade of sage grass, barely looking up to acknowledge them. Judy led them down a dirt road, rows of crops surrounding them on either side. Nick could see grain silos in the distance, easily the tallest structures around. It was exactly the kind of pastoral scene he had imagined her growing up in, and the exact opposite to his own experiences, growing up in a crowded brownstone apartment on Savanna Square's West Side. 

“Well, you know me. Nothing quite gets me ready for work like random animals trying to kill me,” he said, inviting a laugh and a healthy chiding from Judy. They continued to walk at a steady, comfortable pace, trading stories of their childhoods as Nick asked which crop was which. His urbane mannerisms betraying him, wrongly referring to harvesters as tractors as Judy rolled her eyes, correcting him as they went. 

Eventually, they reached the house, or houses, it could better be said. A quaint, two story wooden house stood off in a clearing away from the fields, surrounded by enough additions of various sizes and styles that Nick wondered if it was really a single structure. 

“Uh, what's that?” Nick said, pointing to the tangle of assorted homes in front of them. 

“That's my home. It looks that way because Hopps over the years added to it as the family grew. You can't have over two hundred siblings without a place for them to stay, right?” she said with a smile.

“Are all rabbit houses like this?” Nick asked. He wasn't sure if what he was looking at was an avante-garde architectural masterpiece or hastily built shacks masquerading as safe places to live. 

“Most other families, yeah. Some look better than others. My dad built that section right there,” she said, pointing to a portion of the structure with large bay windows and modern, vinyl siding. Solar panels adorned the roof of that particular section, while he noticed there was ground being cleared around it for another addition immediately adjoining it.

“My oldest brother is planning on building his right next to it. My granddad built that one and my great-granddad built that other one, and-”

“So each member of your family builds a new section when they start their own family, huh?

“Not all. Only the ones that stick around here. And usually it's only the first one to start the next generations of Hopps. Obviously I lost that race,” she said, at last taking her paw from Nick's and crossing her arms.

“I think it gives the place character,” he said, not entirely sure of himself, but nodding his head in its direction nevertheless. “You ready?”

“Of course.”

They walked toward the house, Judy leading him to one of the doors she knew was always unlocked, and stepped inside rather nonchalantly. At this hour, she knew, most of her family was outside, working in the fields or silos or factories. Closing the door behind them, she led him into the family room, telling him to wait while she found a change of clothes for the two of them. For her, the task would be relatively easy – she was a bunny in a rabbit's home, after all. For him, she had said, it was maybe possible, in the slightest, that one of her overweight brothers owned clothes that could fit him. He stood around, paws in his pockets as he waited. He noticed, immediately above the television, that there was a large, framed photograph of her family. Judy wasn't lying when she said she had a lot of brothers and sisters. To him, there must have been hundreds of rabbits in the photo. He passed the time trying to find Judy among the bunch, running his paw over their faces. It didn't take long before he was able to find her, her distinctive purple eyes – coming from her mother, he could see – taking her apart from her family. He stared at the picture for a few minutes, his eyes studying it, trying to guess what he could about her siblings from the way they dressed, the way they stood, the way they smiled. Judy, he noticed, was the only one among them who gave off an aura of unbridled optimism: standing up straight, a wide smile across her face, and eyes that spoke directly to his, from so many years ago. 

“Sorry for the wait,” he heard, turning. He could see Judy standing at the doorway, throwing him a shirt. “It's comically large for most bunnies but I think it should fit you just fine. I hope you don't mind the grease stains, though. Willie works at the fertilizer factory. He'll be one of my brothers we'll want to speak to in order to find out more about the shipment,” she said, turning her head away as he took off his bloodied shirt in the living room. 

As Nick took off his shirt, he winced in pain, letting out a barely audible groan when he tugged the shirt away from his injured shoulder – the cloth had stuck to the wound and he could see a clump of fur tear itself away as he pulled it off. The wound started to bleed again, though not as severely as last night.

“Carrots, can you grab me some gauze?” he asked her, using his shirt to apply pressure to the wound. Judy nodded without turning her head, her ears hanging limp against her her. She returned as quickly as she left, her head facing the floor, handing the gauze to him. “Thanks, now can you hold it in place while I wrap it?” he asked.

“What?” Judy said, surprised. He saw more color than she usually gave off on her face, her eyes and mouth straining to maintain normalcy. Nick could only laugh.

“Does this make you uncomfortable?” he asked, leaning down to her level while she turned her head away from him, nodding. Placing the gauze on the wound, he held a strip in place using his free paw, looking back at her. “Sorry, Carrots, but I really can't do this alone. At least, not on my shoulder. Please?” 

She took the free end of the gauze from him, slowly wrapping it around his shoulder and upper arm. He squatted at her level the entire time, inspecting her handiwork as she went. He noticed her eyes darting between the floor and his torso every now and then, before she finally looked up to concentrate on tying down the gauze once she had finished wrapping. She ripped the rest off using her teeth, rolling it back into itself and looking up at Nick. He seemed, in that moment, vulnerable; just as small as she was and unable to win against the bad guys in a head-to-head fight, only barely surviving using his wits and skill. If anyone could take on the world – and whoever was behind this mess – it was them. They just needed to survive, first.

They stood there in silence, staring at each other, before they heard the sound of keys unlocking doors. Nick hastily put on the greasy, plaid shirt as Judy rushed into the foyer. She saw her mother walk in, carrying a heavy load of bags from the general store, her back to Judy. In the doorway, she saw a rabbit not much younger than herself wearing tight jeans and a blue shirt with the white outline of a sparrow on it. The same emblem was on her cap, with a smattering of political campaign buttons hastily tacked on. She was busy reading a book, her glasses nearly falling off her face as she came inside, tripping over the doorstop, stopping herself by leaning against a banister on the wall.

Gaining her bearings, the younger bunny looked up, dropping the book from her paws. “Judy?” she asked.

Judy waved as her mother turned around, putting her paws to her mouth. Without any warning or invitation, she ran up to Judy and hugged her, her mother's grip tighter than most of the criminals she arrested. As she returned the hug, her mother leaned into her, whispering in her ear.

“Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to lie, this chapter was an absolute bastard to write. So many plot points that I want to cover, but you have to pace these things. 
> 
> As an aside, expect periodic delays in updates for at least a week. I've got an Arabic unit exam coming up and the language has not been kind to me. I'll try to get the next chapter up sooner than this was released, though. At least it's a weekend. 
> 
> Thank you again for your comments and kudos, and most importantly, your reading. This was the first chapter of Act Four, and once again, I hope you've enjoyed reading.


	18. Ministers of State

**Chapter XVII: Ministers of State**

 

Nick had never been a stranger to the Hopps family, but he was still an unfamiliar face. Bonnie Hopps stood there, studying him, wondering what in God's name her daughter had gotten into. For his part, he stood frozen at the position of attention, wondering whether or not it was alright to move, or even speak. Looking over at Judy from the corner of his eye, and the death glare she shot him, he could tell that this was the matriarch's house. He wouldn't be the first to get a word in today.

 

“Well,” Mrs. Hopps finally said, sitting down on the couch and inviting the three of them to sit alongside her. “I guess you could do worse for yourself.”

 

“Mom!” Judy said, restraining herself from snapping like an angry teenager.

 

“I thought he would be taller, to be honest. Then again, those advertisements for the ZPD do deceive you a little bit. You've been taking care of my daughter on the police force, I hope? I know she just loves to go out and solve all those crimes in Zootopia but honestly, I worry about her. If she has a partner like you-”

 

“Yes ma'am,” Nick said impulsively, cutting her off and earning a face palm from Judy. He'd hear about that later. “The most trouble we usually get into is seeing who's the faster runner,” he said, scratching behind his ears and letting out short, forced laughs. He'd decided against telling her about the fact that they'd almost been killed last night. Or that they were kicked off the force altogether.

 

“Seems a little too PR friendly, sticking the first rabbit officer and first fox officer together,” the younger rabbit said. “Makes you wonder if the ZPD was really earnest in hiring you two at all.”

 

“Lola!” Mrs. Hopps scolded. Nick held up a paw, trying to defuse the situation.

 

“Actually, me and Judy requested to be partnered together after our first case,” he said. “Besides, I can't let that animal out of my sights for one minute – she might go super cop on me and steal all the glory for herself.”

 

Mrs. Hopps laughed, putting a paw to her mouth and looking over at her daughter. It had been years since they'd seen each other face-to-face. Video calls just couldn't replace the feeling of holder her daughter and knowing she was safe with a partner that took care of her.

 

Judy had hastily introduced Nick to her mother and her sister Lola as soon as she could, hoping to get the questioning about them aside before her brothers made it back from the factory and her father came back from the farm. He would insist on them having dinner with the family, of course, which would take time from their investigation, and every minute spent in Bunnyburrow gathering facts on the ammonium nitrate shipments was another minute that things in Zootopia escalated out of control. Even when they were being chased around, they had still been able to gather information on key actors in this messy excuse of a case.

 

“Lola, I thought you were off at college?” Judy asked, looking at her sister.

 

“She's back for spring break! I drove over to the train station to pick her up after Gideon dropped off his latest batch of sweets to the cart. You should have been here for his wedding! He's got such a lovely family now,” Mrs. Hopps said.

 

Judy nodded in understanding, explaining that she and Nick had arrived on the overnight train from Zootopia. They had missed each other by an hour, it seemed. Judy felt glad – she enjoyed the walk to her house with Nick, and could have lived without proselytizing from Lola during the car ride.

 

Lola Hopps, one of Judy's hundreds of siblings, was one of the more peculiar bunnies in the clan. She was always studious, with the same penchant for justice that Judy had as a child. Except whereas Judy looked to law enforcement as a means to upholding her ideals, Lola had chosen the civil service. She studied political science at Balsa City University, far, far away from Bunnyburrow, and a trip that made Judy's decision to move to Zootopia look like she'd just moved to a different neighborhood. Lola's activism on various issues often won her friends in high places elsewhere, but Judy could still remember the epic fight between her and their father when she'd taken up the issue of farm waste runoff with him. To say that she could be abrasive in her earnestness was an understatement.

 

“So, Judy, I take it you saw the news about your chief of police?” Lola asked, startling both Nick and Judy. “What do you think of his replacement?”

 

“Replacement? How did you-” Judy asked, being cut off by her sister with a raised paw.

 

“I'm a news junkie, remember? The mayor named the new chief of police immediately after he press conference on the old one's arrest. What what his name? Bobo? Bingo?”

 

“Bogo,” Judy said, curtly. She and Nick had been took busy breaking into ZPD headquarters and running for their lives to have kept up with the media broadcasts last night. They knew exactly where Chief Bogo was, however, and they planned on exonerating him, alongside whatever else was lurking in the shadows. “Who's his replacement?”

 

“Tony Lamb, a sheep from the Meadowlands, former police chief of Great Plainsfield. I have to say I'm disappointed the mayor got rid of a corrupt, anti-non-mammal police chief and replaced him with someone even worse,” Lola said, bitter enmity in her voice. She'd never been a supporter of Judy's decision to join the ZPD.

 

“Lola!” Mrs. Hopps said again, sharpening her gaze at the younger sister.

 

“ZPD's been discriminating against birds and reptiles for years and everyone seemed to go along with it – condone it, even. The captains in the worst districts get awards for kicking poor non-mammals out of their homes, mom. I'm just letting Judy know what she's all about,” Lola said, her paws in the air, animating themselves to prove a point.

 

“I can assure you I've never seen any discrimination going on at the ZPD,” Judy said, her voice rising in anger. “And Chief Bogo's a good cop. He didn't deserve to get sacked, let alone on some bogus corruption charge.”

 

Before Lola could respond, Mrs. Hopps stood up. “I'm going to make some tea for Judy and our guest. Lola, could you come with me?”she said, motioning to the younger rabbit. She looked as if she was about to say something, but dropped the matter when Mrs. Hopps didn't break her gaze. She closed her mouth and left the room with her mother. Nick and Judy's eyes followed them while they exited and the fox sighed when it was all over.

 

“So, what's her deal?” he asked.

 

“She's real big into anti-establishment politics,” Judy said, taking a seat next to him on the couch when she was sure they were out of earshot. “Didn't you see the campaign logo?”

 

“What? The t-shirt and hat with the bird? What's up with that?”

 

“Birdie Sanders? I think his name was? He's a senator where Lola goes to school and she works for him. She used to make our dad angry a lot whenever she'd bring up his latest speeches at dinner,” she said, pulling out her phone. “Still, though, I guess we got some good information out of that. Let's check out this new guy. We can't let this go to waste.”

 

“I'm more interested in what she had to say about the birds and reptiles,” Nick said, putting one paw to his muzzle and the other behind his ear to scratch it. Judy knew he would be running mental calculus in his head to process what he'd just heard. His physical poses whenever he was lost in thought were a tick of his, but one she was fond of; she always knew when he was lost in his mind whenever he was like this, and she knew something good would come out of it. “Your sister said something about the ZPD discriminating against birds and reptiles.”

 

Judy waved it off. “I think it's something her boss said to her and she ran with it. I mean, it seems so absurd to think that somehow we'd be the bad guys in the city. I don't think I've even seen a bird or reptile in Zootopia!” she said.

 

“No, no – they're there, Carrots. They mostly keep to the Canal District, but they're there.”

 

“The Canal District? That's, what, the Fifth Precinct?” she asked, tilting her head sideways. “That's the second safest district in the city, next to Savanna Square. I've never heard anything bad come out of that area.”

 

“Neither have I, but maybe that's the point,” Nick said. “Maybe she knows something we don't.”

 

“Nick, I think you're taking my sister way too seriously. If there was anything even remotely wrong happening in the police department, I'm sure the chief would have taken care of it. He doesn't have time for nonsense,” Judy said.

 

“Judy, we already know the chief got dismissed for something he didn't do and we already know someone's been covering up both the murder and the assaults in Zootopia. What if someone's been covering up what your sister was just talking about and we just don't know it?” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes, his face fully intent on pursuing this.

 

“How would she know what we don't? We work, sorry, worked for the ZPD. I think we'd have noticed some officers beating a poor eagle on the street.”

 

“Central precinct officers who happen to live downtown. When was the last time you've been up to the canals?” He asked. Judy had to concede that point. The Canal District, for what it was worth, was mostly a sleepy industrial hub. The main trouble came from the northern Rainforest District, where most of its workers lived, drank, and broke the law. Aside from that, she didn't know much about it. She didn't need to. “Come on, let's go talk to her,” he said, standing up and dragging Judy by the paw along with him. She grudgingly agreed, following him into the kitchen, where Lola and Mrs. Hopps were sitting across from each other at the island. Mrs. Hopps stared into a cup of tea while Lola looked dispassionate and disinterested. She stood up and came over to them when Nick waved at her from the doorway, beckoning her to come over. She asked Nick what he wanted when she arrived, deliberately refusing to acknowledge Judy's presence next to him.

 

“You said the ZPD was discriminating against birds and reptiles, but how do you know that? Me and your sister have literally been working for the department for over two years now and we've never even seen a bird or a reptile, let alone hear about them in the news,” Nick said, leaning his good shoulder against the wall, focusing his attention and energy on Lola. He had to know.

 

“That doesn't really surprise me. Zootopians have always had a better image of themselves than the rest of the country,” she said. Nick could do without the jabs and he could practically feel Judy rolling her eyes at her sister as she crossed her arms across her chest. “Luckily, I just worked on a report for the Senate about this issue a few weeks ago. I'll show it to you,” she said, heading back into the kitchen and retrieving a messenger bag from the floor. She pulled out a large, bound report easily hundreds of pages long, and came back over to hand it to Nick. The great seal of the Animal Kingdom, a lion and zebra shaking paws, spears at their feet, was emblazoned on the front cover.

 

“A report on the general affairs of non-mammalian species in the Animal Kingdom,” Nick said, reading the cover. “Alright, where's Zootopia fit in this?”

 

“Page 300. I personally worked on the section for Zootopia,” Lola said, folding the report out to its middle and pointing to a larger header indicating statistics and details on non-mammals living in Zootopia. Everything was properly cited, and backed by research by the Ministry of Justice – here it was, the smoking gun: an indictment of the very system that Nick and Judy had been working for for the past two years. Summed up across forty-five pages was a detailed description of a virtual pogrom against birds and reptiles in the Canal District by the Fifth Precinct police over the last two years. Where they were heading, no one knew, but the report detailed in fine specificity that the ZPD was the blame for the disappearances and removals of hundreds of the animals – mostly law-abiding citizens – from their homes.

 

“How come this hasn't gotten any attention? You'd figure ZNN would be all over this,” Nick asked. Judy, for her part, was still poring over the pages, her mouth as wide as it could go, smacking her head at the revelation.

 

“The report died in committee. The senator from the Meadowlands led the effort to kill it – that province has a tendency to produce mammal supremacist assholes, which is why I was so aggressive about your new police chief. Judy, I'm sorry, but I have to call it like I see it. You two are working for the bad guys, here,” she said.

 

“Wait, wait, wait – can we look up who this Tony Lamb is and who he's connected to? Why is a police chief from the Meadowlands being transferred to Zootopia?” Judy asked, closing the report. Now that Lola actually had something to go off of, her policing curiosity began to boil over. Something wasn't right.

 

“You've got your phone, don't you?” Lola said. Visibly annoyed, Judy began typing the names in on her phone, looking up what she could from the internet. She opened up ZNN and Legistar on the split screen, sure enough, revealing that Tony Lamb had been confirmed as the new chief of police late last night in an emergency session of the city council. A search engine only revealed that he'd been the chief of police for Great Plainsfield. That didn't help – that was information they already knew. Searching cached pages, however, drew her farther into his past. She motioned for Nick to look at her phone, pointing at the search results.

 

“Nick, look,” she said, pointing to a nearly decade old web page. It was then-councilor Bellweather's campaign page for her run for mayor of Zootopia, nine years ago. The cache had found Tony Lamb's name under the key staff directory. “Lamb was Bellweather's chief of security nine years ago.”

 

“Didn't Bos's brother work on her campaign as well?” Nick asked, leaning in, remember the business cards they'd taken from the murdered yak's wallet. Scrolling to the top, they found Leonard Bos's name right under Bellweather's: the general manager of her campaign.

 

“Hey,” Judy said, scrolling down. “Cynthia Spots, media director – wasn't she-”

 

“The mayor's chief of staff? Yeah, she was that ocelot at the meeting. God, I hated the way she smiled. Who are the rest of these animals?” Nick asked.

 

“Malloy Brickleberry, chief counsel; Louis McHorn, economic adviser; Paul Moo, communications director. Nick, all of these animals are-”

 

Nick nodded, anticipating her shock. He could only look at their portraits on the web page and shake his head. All of them were senior officials in the Zootopian government now. Brickleberry, they'd worked with for years – he was the city's district attorney, a grizzly bear and as tenacious a lawyer as they'd come. Louis McHorn had been installed as the new chair of the Tundra Town Economic Development Corporation, and an unusual choice for such an arctic posting, being a rhino. After the mayor had cracked down on the former chamber of commerce, Mr. Big's allies sat in prison as he managed the economy of the district. Paul Moo, a cow with no significant distinction, had been the ZPD – and the entire city government's - “IT guy” for the last two years, being the one they called whenever they needed help setting up an email server – or tapping one, whatever the case may be.

 

Nick leaned against the wall, making his way to the floor, looking up at Judy. “So,” he said, his mind churning. “Chief Bogo was the only member on the cabinet who wasn't affiliated with Bellweather. If I thought we'd still have to put up with her after all this time,” he said, laughing, bringing his paws to his muzzle.

 

“Not entirely. Almost the entire cabinet is mentioned here, but I don't see a connection between Bellweather and Mayor Felis,” Judy said, joining him on the floor.

 

“So how exactly did all of these animals end up working for her? You can't tell me it's just a coincidence that Bellweather's campaign staff from nine years ago makes up Felis's cabinet today,” Nick said. “I mean, she had to appoint every single last one of these animals.”

 

“It could be, but maybe not,” Lola said, finally speaking up. The two former officers looked up at her from the floor, her paws stuffed in her pockets as she looked down on the two of them. “Those names might not mean anything to you two but they're some of the heaviest hitters in the business.”

 

“And Leonard Bos? He's the only one from that list who's not in the mayor's cabinet. Who's he?” Judy asked her sister.

 

“You two seriously don't know?” Lola asked, blinking quickly as if to confirm. When neither of them responded, she shook her head. “Well, I guess it makes sense that you don't know since you didn't know about an entire mess of discrimination happening right under your noses. Leonard Bos is pretty much the reason I'm so passionate about this issue right now. He contacted our office several months ago saying something was seriously wrong in Zootopia and that we had to investigate. He runs a charity helping non-mammalian species thrown out of their homes by the ZPD,” she said, pulling out her own cell phone from her pocket. “See?”

 

Judy took the phone from her sister, looking at an email thread between her and Leonard Bos. She almost couldn't believe it – days of searching for this animal on her own initiative had led nowhere, and yet her sister, not yet out of university, was in contact with him? In her mind, Judy partly blamed Nick for her shortcomings as a cop. Mostly, she blamed herself, allowing the fame of the last two years to overshadow her training and skills from the academy. She refocused herself, reading the email chain from the beginning.

 

_“Ms. Hopps, thank you for reaching out to me the other day. I appreciate everything the senator has done for non-traditional animals in this city and for his attention to the issues I addressed in the Balsa City conference. However, I still need your help. Every day I'm getting more and more victims thrown out of their houses by the ZPD and the central government and ABI don't seem to be answering my calls. Please, I need you to investigate this for me. Publish it in the senate. Make their voices heard.”_

 

_“Mr. Bos, I'll try everything I can. Right now, we're working on a few things for the homeless here in Balsa City, but I'll be sure to start going through government files tonight to put together a report on conditions in Zootopia.”_

 

_“The conditions are getting worse by the day and these animals need help now. I've already had to resort to housing some of them underground because surface apartments are too much of a risk. The government here really wants to see these animals out of the city and no one is willing to stop it. Even the media doesn't talk about this. My brother works for a pretty big company – I know how this goes down. If nobody's talking, then everybody's planning something.”_

 

_“Alright. I'll call the committee tonight and try to see if we can get some emergency resources for you while we're investigating. Hang in there!”_

 

_“Thank you.”_

 

As they read over the contents of the email, Nick stifled anger and incredulity. How could they be the city's star police officers and not know about something so flagrant going on in their own department? Wasn't it the chief's job to report on, let alone stop, abuses like this? He clenched hard on his teeth, the canines sending sharp pressure up his head from the force.

 

“So Leonard Bos is out busying himself saving the animals that his brother is sending out on the street by dumping their life savings?” Judy said, not so much asking as reaffirming the relationship in her mind. “All the while the Fifth Precinct is literally dumping these animals out on the street. And while that's going on, we have the mayor practically dismantling the ZPD without ever mentioning this. “

 

Nick sighed, turning to the bunny. “Yeah, sounds ridiculous enough for one of our cases,” he said, tucking his paws into his armpits and leaning back against the wall. “Problem is, what does everyone else have to do with it? Rickey Mouse is involved somehow in the Bos murder and in Duke's death, but other than that we don't have a clear relationship between him and these animals. There's nothing to tie him down in this, but he's in there somewhere.”

 

“To say nothing of the cabinet,” Judy said, mimicking Nick's pose.

 

Lola stared at the two of them, shaking her head. These two were meant to be cops. Even if she didn't want to admit it, her sister was showing curiosity way beyond a beat patrol officer. Whatever her case involved, it was personal to her.

 

“I can let you two onto my senate page account if you think it'll help with whatever you're working on,” she said, finally bending herself to her sister. If there was any way Judy could help her cause, she'd fit right in on Bright Hill. She'd make a fine ally one day.

 

“Thanks, Lola. Now we just have to wait for William and Pete to get back from the factory, we've been meaning to ask them something related to our case as well,” Judy said.

 

“Oh, well that shouldn't take long. Dad started picking them up after he was done with the day's harvest after their truck broke down. They should be arriving soon.”

 

Almost on cue, they could hear the rumbling of tires coming down the dirt road to the house. The noisy exhaust of a decades-old pickup truck beat down the road and died a short distance from the foyer, the glint of the setting sun reflecting off the windshield and echoing passed the bay windows into a cascade of light that engulfed their section of the house. Judy could hear several rabbits' footsteps coming up the patio as the door unlocked, Mrs. Hopps springing into action and waiting for the door to open, thanking God for their safety and welcoming them inside.

 

They could hear raucous laughter coming from the doorway and waited for the rabbits to settle themselves inside before standing up, deciding to head to the commotion. Thanks to Lola, they'd finally made a break in the case, connecting the dots in an every clearer pattern that engulfed the city. It occurred to Judy, then, that perhaps this is the way it was meant to be: that she could run around and lose, time and time again in Zootopia and return home as the prodigal daughter, finally scraping together a win. Whatever questions she and Nick had for her brothers could wait a little farther into the evening, at least a little while. Tonight, at the very least, they could enjoy themselves. They could tell tales of their time in Zootopia and supplant her parents as kings in this castle and, all the while, set the stage for the need to inspect the Amani Chemical Plant for themselves.

 

The truth lay there, she thought. Less than a day in Bunnyburrow had gotten her this far, farther than she'd been able to go in two weeks in Zootopia. Whatever it was that precipitated Mr. Bos's murder and sent them on this case through hell, they'd find it buried there. This case, she decided, was a house of cards – it would all come crashing down once they found the truth.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another complete bastard of a chapter to write, and the longest one yet, clocking in at over 4,000 words. 
> 
> Usually I begin writing the next chapter immediately after posting, but that won't be happening this week. I've got an Arabic exam coming up and so studying will be my number one priority for the next several days. Because of this, don't expect a new chapter before the weekend, at the earliest.
> 
> Once again, I hope you enjoyed reading the chapter. See you next time.


	19. Heavy Industry

Chapter XVIII: Heavy Industry

Mrs. Hopps would have to wait to treat them to a home cooked meal, it seemed. The duo sat in the back of her father's pick-up truck, barreling down the highway at a dizzying speed. It had taken negotiating, pleading, and cajoling through the better part of the evening, but Nick and Judy had convinced her brothers to take them to the refinery where they worked: the Warrens-Den Chemical Plant, owned by the Amami Chemical Corporation. Judy could barely hear herself think over the howling of the wind. The evening air was cool, made frigid by sheer momentum, and the fox and rabbit huddled against each other for warmth. 

The night sky in Bunnyburrow held the twinkling of starlight and the soft gaze of galactic haze, reflecting light off of dust trillions of kilometers away. As they neared their destination, the country sky gave way to the dull orange skyglow they'd left behind not so far ago. Turning her head toward the source, she could easily see why. A veritable city of metal and flame shot up from the side of a hill. This was Warrens-Den, the hub of all the machinery and refineries that pumped the chemicals and refined products needed to keep Zootopia's modern society alive. She had learned years ago in middle school that the town had once been a sleepy farming hamlet – Bunnyburrow's sister village. The presence of the mighty Ox River cutting through its heart had lured textile and lumber yards to the town two hundred years ago and it continued to develop ever since. Now, whatever remained of Warrens-Den's pastoral past was buried under pipelines, pumps, and storage tanks. They passed a neon sign of a rabbit digging a hole in the ground, welcoming them to the region's industrial heart through the nighttime haze.

It hadn't been easy to convince William and Pete Hopps to take them here. After waking up early in the morning to make the two hour drive to work – and making the same trip back home in the evening – they were hardly in the mood to take the pair back that way. Not even Judy's insistence that it was a matter of life and death swayed them, with Pete telling her that the refineries were life and death themselves. Without them, Zootopia wouldn't receive the crucial coolants it needed to keep its environmental systems working; without rested workers, those factories wouldn't work. It hadn't been until Nick taken the brothers aside and told them of the attempt on Judy's life that they had acquiesced. Some animal somewhere wanted their sister dead, and somehow that animal was linked to the Amami Chemical Plant. They told their mother they would skip dinner tonight.

Now, nearing the gates of the complex, the brothers slowed down, turning off the radio as they did so. As they neared a corner, they pulled over to a curb, motioning for Nick and Judy to get out of their truck.

“We'll give you our access keys so you can do your snooping yourselves. When you're done, just find us over at the Bull and Bear Tavern down the way. You two can drive home. You owe me that one, sis,” William said. He was rather obese for a rabbit, looking winded just through the act of speaking to his sister. Nick could see oil stains covering a great majority of his overalls and a grime covering his fur. Whatever his role in the refinery was, Nick thought, it must be a hell of a lot worse than policing. William seemed to feel the fox eyeing him, returning his gaze and fixating on his shirt. “And I want that shirt back when we get home. You have to earn a well hand's stains to wear a well hand's shirt,” he said, pulling off the road as Pete leaned out the window to hand Judy their ID cards. The other brother was significantly smaller than William – about Judy's size, if not her beauty. His dull brown fur blended in perfectly with the night glow. 

The truck went on its way and the dust settled behind them and suddenly Nick and Judy found themselves alone among millions of tons of steel and the hissing of steam and gas flares shooting off from overflow valves dozens of meters above them. Nick could feel Judy shivering beside him and he brought her in close to him, slinging his arm around her. She looked up at him, nodding in thanks and handing him William's ID card. Thankfully, neither of their cards had photos on them, just RFID chips and a magnetic strip. They rounded the corner and saw why. Guards weren't posted at the entrance, merely electronic signal gates that would open when presented with the right credentials. Nick couldn't help but smile. 

“This is going to be too easy,” Nick said, bounding toward the gate. He motioned for Judy to join him, swiping the card through the pedestrian turnstile and gaining access immediately. “Come on, let's go!” he called out.

Dutifully, she obliged, coming inside the compound. Technically speaking, she was committing breaking and entering right now, but considering the consequences of not finding out what the ammonium nitrate was for – and who was ordering Rickey Mouse to bring it into the city – Judy had decided that she would rather take the risk of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons than sit idly by. Two animals were dead already, Chief Bogo had been sacked under false charges, and they themselves had had their lives threatened and assaulted. No, sitting by would be to condemn Zootopia to the hands of whoever it was that was pulling the strings behind these events, and Judy had learned a long time ago that surrender was a bigger loss than defeat. 

Although this determination didn't stop them from being lost. The complex was massive, and after a half hour of walking down the central boulevard, they still had no idea where, exactly, the Amami plant was located amid the mass of buildings. As luck would have it, they didn't have to. Scanning around to gain their bearings, Nick had spotted a rather bland looking brick and concrete structure topped with a glass cube. As they neared it, they could make out faded blue lettering on the side of the building: administrative complex one. Presenting their IDs to the card readers in the doors, they were pleasantly surprised when the keypads changed from red to green and the bolts clicked. They let themselves inside, poking around offices on the ground floor before Nick found a map of the complex.

“Hey, Carrots, come here! Check this out!” he said, urging her to come toward him. The hallway was barely lit save for the glint of emergency exit signs and smoke lighting on the floor and Judy had to rely on following Nick's breathing to find him. She couldn't see as well as him, but she could tell that he was engaged: his breathing was elevated and she could practically smell him huffing and puffing. He was excited. 

“Nick, what does it say? You know I can't see in here!” she chided, grabbing his elbow for reassurance that he was there.

“Turns out that this is the central administration building for this entire half of the complex, including the Amami Chemical Plant,” he said. “Whatever records they have should be in this building.”

“Alright, but how do we find their offices as opposed to some random company that makes tires or something?” she asked, sarcasm dripping off of her voice. “There's got to be dozens of companies represented here, Nick. We can't go through them all.”

“No,” he said. By the way it rolled off his tongue, she could tell he was grinning. He patted her head, rubbing his paw along her ears as he did. “But we can go through the 'A' section. The administration building is organized alphabetically.” He could feel her incredulity and anger growing by the tempo of her feet striking the floor. Judy had never been one to accept good things when they came, especially when those things tended to be obvious choices she had somehow overruled or missed. He let out a quiet laugh, aware of the fact that they weren't supposed to be there, before leaning back against the opposite wall.

“You know you like keeping me around for situations like this,” he said.

“Do I, now?” she asked, leaning towards him. She could only see his outline through the darkness, but even at this distance she could practically smell his fur. The blood from his arm and the grease from her brother's shirt offended her – it wasn't him, the scent she'd gotten so used to over the course of the last two years, and she wanted to rip it off of him and throw him back in the uniform he belonged in. The uniform she belonged in. They were made for this, made for each other. Her head eventually found his chest. Rocking her forehead, she spoke up. “So where do we start?”

“Well,” Nick said, scratching her ears. She felt him move his head from side to side, scanning the hallway. “Since this is the ground floor and we're on 'M' through 'P', I figure 'A' must be up top.”

“In that glass cube we saw from outside, you think?”

“I'm sure of it,” Nick said, pulling away from her and taking her by the paw. “Let's find some stairs, yeah?”

They wandered over to a door that bled light through a small window, finding the staircase easily. Making their way up eight flights, they found that the top floor, unlike the others, required keycard access. Nick tried his ID. The keypad stayed red. 

“That's weird,” Nick said. “Let me see yours.” Taking Judy's ID from her paw, he swiped again with no avail. The door stayed locked. Judy looked up towards the ceiling panels, an idea fluttering in her mind.

“Nick, lift me up,” she said, pointing upwards. The look of confusion on his face was enough to make her giggle, but he obliged, putting his paws out and leaning down. Using his paws as a step-stool, she reached for the ceiling as Nick lifted her above his head. She heard him grunt in pain when he did so, offering quick apologies. She'd forgotten about his wounds in her haste. 

She lifted a ceiling panel up and disappeared into the darkness. It was only a moment's wait before Nick heard a loud thud on the other side of the door, followed by a muffled grown. He had to suppress a laugh. An eye for an eye, a wound for a wound. The door opened, Judy holding it from the other side, rubbing her back with her free paw. 

“Rough landing?” he asked playfully, earning a glare from her. She shook her head before closing the door, following him down the hall.

Unlike the other floors, this one didn't reek of dust and labor. Potted ferns lined the hallway, and a posh waiting room stood in the middle of the floor, offering panoramic views of the machinery outside. Two large, wooden double doors stood behind the receptionist's desk, the letters 'ACC' emblazoned in gold behind it with a logo of a small Amami rabbit in full sprint under them. Trying the door, Judy found it unlocked, and pushed them aside to reveal an expansive office that took up the entire side of the building. A single desk stood in the center of the room, surrounded by a few sofas and cabinets. An extensive library lined the wall adjoining the waiting room, with Nick eagerly taking an interest. 

“Look at all this, Carrots,” he said, pulling binders off the shelves and skimming through them. “Technical manuals, schematics, recipes and formulas, receipts – it's like a treasure trove of 'how to get rich, the legal way',” he said, shaking his head. “Man, if I had some of these while I was out on the street.”

Nick seemed lost in equal parts reminiscence and wonder. Judy, for her part, made her way to the desk in the center, a single computer stood off to its side while Judy could see what looked like an appointment calendar took up the surface. She pulled out her phone to light up the office, staring down at the paper. 

“July 10, CS. July 11, RM. July 12, CS. July 13, Board. ” Judy read off the dates as she passed over them, scratching her head. She clicked the home button on her phone, bringing up her files and the emails they had downloaded from the chief's computer last night. Her free paw found her way to his chin, rubbing it and losing herself. Nick came over, peeking his head through her ears and staring down at the phone as she had her eureka. “I knew I saw these initials somewhere before,” she said, tilting her head up to look at Nick. “These are the same initials we found in the emails at the chief's office, Nick.”

Nick grunted, looking over at the appointment calendar, flipping through it. “The same initials have been marked in for months,” he said, pulling up previous pages from the back end. Lifting the entire package off the table, he saw a large sheet of paper fall to the floor that the calendar had hidden. Judy reached down to pick it up, illuminating it with her phone. Her eyes went wide, studying it, gasping.

“Nick, come here,” she beckoned, laying the paper down on the floor and standing over it with her phone so Nick could get a good look. She took a photo to mark it down for future reference just as Nick came over.

“This is a map of Zootopia,” he said. “What's this doing here?”

“Notice the markings on the page?” she asked, pointing to several distinct circles and dots scattered throughout the city map, occasionally accompanied by text. 

“Yeah, but are they pointing to? There's literally nothing in any of those spots. They're all hugging the borders,” Nick said.

“Nothing except the border walls.”

They looked at each other, locking eyes. Judy hurriedly knelt down beside Nick to read the text accompanying the filled in circles. They were dates and times, all initialed by RM.

“Look,” Nick said, pointing at one dot that had text next to it. It was located a kilometers north of Twentynine Palms, directly on the border with Tundra Town. “It's marked only two weeks ago.”

“The day before Mr. Bos fought that other yak at the train station,” Judy said. “And these other dates are all from within the last few months.”

“Judy!” Nick said emphatically, pointing toward one of the circles that wasn't filled in. “This circle right here, it's the only one in a part of the city that's not a border area,” he said, laying his paw on a part of the map directly in the middle of Savanna Square.

“Yeah. City hall.”

Judy felt like backing away from the map, but for some reason continued to be drawn to it. She felt herself pawing at her phone unconsciously, bringing up the picture she'd taken of the bill of lading in Rickey Mouse's office two days ago. She scanned the summary information – product information, shipment handler, destination – before finding the date. 

“Nick, the date on the bill of lading for the ammonium nitrate matches the date for the dot at the Sahara-Tundra border wall,” she said, shaking her head. “A thousand pounds of high explosives at a border wall, what would it do?”

“If it detonated on some random spot along the walls? Not much,” Nick said, standing back up and scratching behind his ears, as he was wont to do whenever he was agitated or thinking aggressively. “Those walls are pretty damn thick. It might bring the wall down, but they're thick enough where it could just damage it. Maybe undermine a foundation and disrupt utilities.”

Judy's mind was drawn to the spectacular shower that enveloped their train as they left Zootopia, a product of the complicated environmental control systems that surrounded the city and helped keep it alive. She looked down at the map again. “And if it struck a climate control node?” she asked. Nick looked between her and the map, his eyes widening in terror.

“The nodes are built into the walls, so they're not as thick in those areas. You take out the control node between Sahara Square and Tundra Town,” he said, pausing, allowing Judy to catch up to his thoughts and finish his sentence.

“And Tundra Town boils to death while Sahara Square freezes to death,” she said. “And all these other nodes?”

“Water acidity, humidity – you name it, they're spread out where they're needed, but,” he said, placing his paws on his hips, leaning backwards to crack his back and sigh. “No nodes, no city.”

“God, Nick, we have to go back. We have to check these out ourselves!” Judy said, turning around to face the industrial complex. Her face reflected itself in the floor-to-ceiling glass of the office. She could sense Nick come by her side before she saw his reflection. He put his paw on her shoulder.

“Someone's still trying to kill us, remember?” he said, watching her expression lower in the glass. The strange sensation of watching her reflection mimic her own thoughts as opposed to witnessing them himself forced him to turn her around to face him. She looked up at him and buried her head in his chest. “You can't play the hero cop forever. Let's wait until things cool down a little more in Zootopia. Besides, we can probably find a hell of a lot of clues using your sister's senate account. We can't do that back in the city.”

“I know, I know,” Judy said, her breath warming his chest. Judy was always enthusiastic to get the job done, ever the first responder. This waiting and detached investigating didn't suit her. She needed a suspect. “Nick, do you think we'll even be able to protect anyone back in Zootopia if we keep waiting like this?” she asked quietly. Her paws found his back, hugging him. She needed the support. Details behind the case kept piling up and kept adding questions but yielding few answers. 

“We won't be able to protect anything if we're dead,” he said, scratching the top of her head. “Besides, I – we – need more time to piece this thing together.”

“I thought foxes we supposed to be bold and cunning,” she said, laughing only slightly.

“Oh, we are, Carrots. But whoever is pulling the strings here isn't a fox; there's too many moving parts. Too many players. Foxes hustle. This is another animal altogether. I'm willing the bet animal we end up taking down is much more conniving. This? This right here? This must have taken years to set into motion,” Nick said, sweeping his arm across the room and pointing down at the map. 

“Come to think of it,” he said, breaking their hug and walking back over to the desk, turning on the computer. Unfortunately for him, unlike the chief's computer, the local plant manager had better administrative security. Nick was locked out. He tried the drawers to the desk, rifling through them, letting papers flow out as he tossed objects in every direction. Judy came behind him, tilting her head.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“There's got to be more here,” he said, digging through until he found what he was looking for, pulling out a personal organizer from the desk. “I was hoping this guy would have one of these,” he said. “These things are still popular with older executives who can't work smart phones, and I don't think 'refinery management' is a popular job field with kids these days.”

“Well? What is it?”

Nick motioned over to her, opening the day planner. There were business cards stacked all throughout the left binding, before the daily schedule book in the center. Most of the manager's business cards were from associates in the Warrens-Den Industrial Complex, save one. 

“ZTA MetroTrail Expansion Project Union Coordinator, Rickey Mouse,” he said, reading the name aloud. Judy was impressed. Nick flipped through the pages of the organizer, finding detailed, hourly logs of meetings with the manager's associated. Like his business cards, most of his meetings took place within the confines of the complex and were with fellow Amami Chemical executives or related companies. However, there were several entries allotted for travel to and from Zootopia. A litany of addresses were listed.

“Judy, look up these addresses for me, could you?”

Judy nodded, typing them in one by one into her phone's search engine. 110 Eucalyptus Street: Zootopia Aerospace Corporation headquarters. 10 Municipal Plaza: Zootopia Environmental Systems. 1 Civic Center: City hall. She showed Nick the results. He shook his head.

“The trails just keep intersecting. We've been changing paths so often that we keep arriving at the same spot, walking in circles. Now,” he said, closing his eyes. “We're so close! I bet you Rickey Mouse was the one who initialed all of those dots on that map. If only we had something more to go on.”

“I think we do,” Judy said, crossing her arms across her chest. “It's like you said, my sister's senate account can get us more info on some of these animals. Maybe get us some output disclosure reports from this complex and compare them to total shipments?”

“That would mean spending another day at your house,” Nick said, a smile creeping up across his face.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Lead the way, Carrots. Lead the way.”

They cleaned up their mess where they could, trying their best to recreate the office as they had found it and left the complex. It was as dead as they'd found it, save for the hissing of gas pipelines and grinding of pumps. The entire area began to make her feel sick, giving off a noxious odor, even at such a late hour. They exited the gates, turned right where they had been dropped off, and found her brother's pick up truck precisely where they'd been promised they would find it: at the Bull and Bear Tavern a few blocks down the road. Judy told Nick to wait outside, disappearing inside and emerging moments later with both of her brother's in tow, stumbling drunk. They were huddled over each other, giggling, William holding Pete up and pointing at the fox, mumbling obscenities at him even as he helped them into the back of the truck. Nick, for his part, found it amusing. Getting into the passenger side as Judy started up the truck, she looked over to him, wondering about her brothers.

“So, what did he say to you? He seemed pretty angry,” she asked. Nick waved her question away with his paw and a sigh. 

“Not much. It was pretty unintelligible, to be honest,” he said, shrugging and laughing. In truth, William had told Nick that if he slept with his sister, he'd turn the fox into a pelt. Why did everyone he met assume that he and Judy were that intimate? His feelings for her shouldn't be that apparent, should they? Then again, two years of seeing someone every waking moment of the day would develop a certain comfort between the two of them that would only be enhanced by his sincere emotions. He tried to make piecemeal conversation with Judy as he questioned his intentions in his mind. 

What, exactly, were they? They'd been able to maintain a charade of faux intimacy over the course of the last two years, but this case had thrown their entire working pattern and their livelihoods into jeopardy. He was reminded that, when he and Judy had been in William and Pete's situation not too long ago, the two of them were enthusiastic to display their affection for each other all over Saint's bar. Forget the case, Nick, how was this going to end? He was surprised when Judy put the truck in park, looking up and finding them at the Hopps's farmhouse. 

He looked in the back and found the two brothers firmly asleep, with Judy forcing him to help them back into the house. She had taken Pete over her shoulders and fire carried him into the foyer. Nick struggled to drag the much larger William inside, plopping the obese rabbit onto the couch in exhaustion. He struggled to catch his breath as Judy gingerly laid Pete down on the other couch in the day room, looking up at him. 

“Thanks, Nick,” she said, smiling at him. “I think we'll end up doing like you said and stay here an extra few days. Wait for things to cool down, investigate using my sister's government account, and strike when the time is right.” She stifled a yawn, arching her back and stretching in front of him. In that moment, when her shirt slightly untucked itself from her jeans and her ears flopped to her back, Nick was confident. He would protect her, this rabbit who loved so much to protect others. He'd be hers.

Sensing his eyes on her, Judy walked up to him, grabbing his muzzle. “Come on, we can figure the rest out in the morning,” she said, grazing his face. The last two years had been such a burden on her, not because of her job – she loved being a cop, no. Outside of work and those moments they spent together before and after clocking out, she only got to spend a few chance moments with the fox. He had shattered her world time and time again, and yet stood with her to rebuild her career, her way of thinking, and her way of life. Time and time again, he'd been there for her in a way that no other animal in her life had been. Life without him, she knew, was impossible at this point – he'd become indispensable. She slept better knowing that she would see him in the morning. She nudged her head down the hallway and Nick followed her dutifully.

She went into the bathroom and gave him an extra toothbrush. Brushing their teeth at the same time, she looked in the mirror and saw how exhausted they truly were. Nick's eyes could barely stay open. The last few days had taken their toll on them both, it seemed. She took him by the wrists and led him up the stairs, toward her old room. It was exactly as she'd left it two years ago, when she left for the police academy. Nick saw the bed and threw off his shirt, allowing the oily rag to lay on the floor. He immediately laid down, closing his eyes and bringing his arms behind his head, barely having the energy to mumble.

Judy looked over and smiled. She had meant for him to take the air mattress stored in her closet, but it was no matter. She took her old pajamas from the closet and changed into them, watching Nick. His eyes stayed closed and his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. Walking over to him, she joined him in the bed, drawing the blanket over them and laying her head down on his chest, his fur as her pillow. He brought his arm around her, barely making out a smile, before falling asleep, the dawn of a new day awaiting them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my Unit 2 Arabic exam is over and done with, so I'll finally be able to resume a regular writing schedule. I'm both glad that I was able to write this chapter in two days and annoyed that it came out as long as it did. I added several new scenes that weren't in the outline but I felt were plot-dependent based on the way the story has progressed so far and condensed several scenes towards the end to fit the timeline. It ended up being the longest chapter, by far, anyway.
> 
> On a side note, I'm totally abandoning the planned six act structure, since it's readily apparent to me that this isn't ending in the next two arcs. The ending is fully fleshed out, but actually developing the story has forced me to condense, delete, and add so many scenes that I can't say the story outline is acting in any capacity other than a guideline right now. So, for now at least, expect the saga to continue for an indeterminate time until it ends.
> 
> Once again, I hope you've enjoyed reading. Thank you for your feedback so far, it's much appreciated.


	20. Digital Footprint

Chapter XIX: Digital Footprint

Judy had woken up to Nick stroking her ears back behind her head, a small smile on his face. Sunlight was bursting through the window, reflecting off of the small TV in the corner and glinting in her eye. The time on the cable box told her that it was already past noon. She hid from the day by burying herself in his chest, looking up at the fox with one eye.

“Morning, officer,” he said cheerfully. His ears perked up when he saw she was awake. She rustled them before sitting up on the bed, getting off of him, letting out a yawn and stretching her arms.

“Morning. How long have you been awake?” she asked, looking over he shoulder at him as he sat up.

“About four hours now,” he said, scratching the spot behind his ears where she had rubbed them.

“Four hours!” she said, extremely reserved. “And you didn't get up?” He shook his head in response, holding up a paw to stave off further objections from her.

“Would've woken you up,” he said, flatly. “Besides, there's worse ways of waking up and spending a morning.” He broke out into a wide grin. Judy shook her head, putting a paw to her forehead.

“Well, I suppose now that we're both up we should get to work,” she said, getting up to pick her brother's shirt off the floor and tossing it at him. “Put that on before you come downstairs, alright? The last thing I need is my sister seeing you like that.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, smiling again. She left to walk downstairs and found Lola in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading from her tablet. They exchanged pleasantries as Judy poured herself a cup and sat down to join her on the island, looking her sister in the face and tapping the counter to get her attention. 

“Lola, do you think me and Nick could still get access to your senate account? We need to do some research.”

“I'd love to Judy, but,” Lola said, interrupting herself. She put her tablet down, and turned it around, shoving it in front of her sister. She was logged onto the Hoovington Post – an avid reader of the paper since high school – and scrolled up on the article she was reading until she came to the headline. Judy's heart sank and she recoiled from the counter.

“Disgraced Cops Sought in Break-In of Zootopia PD HQ,” the headline read. Judy and Nick's official police portraits were displayed prominently below. 

“Lola, what the hell is that?”

“Read it,” she said, less suggesting than commanding. 

“Officers Nick Wilde, 34, and Judy Hopps, 23, were indicted in abstentia by the Zootopia district attorney yesterday after security footage showed them breaking into the police department's headquarters in civic center. The mayor's press secretary has acknowledged that the officers pose 'an extreme danger to the city of Zootopia and its citizens' after brazenly entering the government facility and, according to the Center for Information Security, stole confidential emails from the personal files of former police chief Bogo. Bogo, who was relieved of duty earlier this week, has also been indicted on corruption charges.”

The article read like yellow journalism at its finest – a frenzied media willing to publish anything and everything to get a story out to print, facts be damned. Lola stared at her sister, waiting for an explanation. 

“Judy, I'm working for someone who could be the Prime Minister after this year's elections,” she said, a seriousness that was uncommon to her taking control of her voice. She stood up as she talked to her. “If you – if anyone finds out that I helped you or didn't turn you in when you and your boyfriend were literally sleeping under our roof,” she said, looking away. Lola cradled herself in her arms, shaking her head. “Judy, tell me what's going on.”

“Well, first off, he's not my boyfriend,” Judy said. She'd borrowed the same monotone voice that Nick used whenever he was annoyed. “Secondly, we've been set up. Alright, me and Nick did some stupid things and violated the Zootopia Administrative Code while investigating a murder, and yes we broke into ZPD headquarters, but Lola-”

“So it's true, then?” Lola asked, backing away only slightly.

“Lola, listen to me!” Judy said, exasperated. She clenched her chest with one paw and used the other to emphasize her points. “Me and Nick are the good guys here. Chief Bogo is one of the good guys. Someone really weird is happening in Zootopia right now and we're probably the only ones who know about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

She started from the beginning, that day in the train station that set everything off. She told her sister about the missing evidence, the missing witnesses, and the increasing casualty count from the fallout; about their dismissal from the force, what they'd learned about Rickey Mouse, and the explosives being brought into Zootopia – the grand purpose of which remained unknown, but the motivation for which had to be sinister. She omitted the details about the attempt on their lives. Lola didn't need to know that she had only been a few inches away from being impaled by a bull. Judy said these things in earnest, partly to clarify the situation to her sister and partly to vindicate her own methods, however dishonest they may have been. All she wanted was to serve the city and protect the animals inside. Now, she seemed to be sacrificing large pieces of herself to save it. The information on Lola's account would be key.

Her sister listened eagerly, sipping her coffee as Judy laid the details out. She glanced down at her tablet, closing the internet browser and clicking on an app whose icon Judy didn't recognize. Quickly inputting log in information, she handed the tablet back to Judy.

“Thirty minutes,” she said, sternly. “I'll give you thirty minutes of free access to my account. I don't want to believe that you're part of the problem, Judy, but I can't get involved in this. My future rides on Sanders making Prime Minister.” Lola paused, looking off to the side and out the window of the kitchen toward the crop fields. “I can't get stuck in this place forever.”

“I know, Lola,” Judy said, reaching across the counter and holding her sister's paw, giving it a slight squeeze. “Thanks.”

Lola nodded before leaving the room, allowing Judy unfettered access to her government account. Now, where to begin? She opened her sister's email account. Better get acquainted with Leonard Bos. The yak knew his brother better than Nick and Judy ever could – maybe he could be the answer to why he had gone berserk in the train station two weeks ago? She began to type, posing as her sister:

“Dear Mr. Bos, two very good acquaintances of mine would like to know more about your evidence against the ZPD in its discrimination policies against birds and reptiles in Zootopia, especially regarding your brothers involvement in purchasing banking institutions where they had deposits to deny them access to credit. I believe this will shed light on a much broader swath of the Zootopian government than either of us realize, and I'd like to arrange a meeting between you and them to get more facts from the ground. Sincere regards, Lola Hopps.”

She sent the email, expecting a response to take a while to allow her to navigate to her sister's main account. A reply notification dinged in the corner of the screen almost immediately. It was short and curt, much in the style of anyone who worked in politics for any length of time, but sent the message across just fine.

“Have them meet me at the Savanna Central Cafe any time during lunch hours. I eat there regularly with the animal responsible for conducting our own, internal investigation. I look forward to getting some accountability for these poor animals. Leonard.”

Judy smiled, pleased at herself and him for their timeliness. The events in Zootopia were unfolding very quickly. They needed to be quick in order to tie Mr. Bos's murder in with the explosives being positioned around the city. What business did he have with Rickey Mouse and the cabinet? And why were they smuggling explosives into the city at all? Judy shook her head, refocusing herself. She would need to dig deeper into the senate systems in order to understand the situation further. Using a modified version of Legistar – one that was more powerful and functional, to take account of national legislation and events – she searched for anything regarding non-traditional animals. There was nothing in the way of legislation, save for an anti-discrimination law sponsored by a few senators that went nowhere, but there were events listed under the heading for the Foreign Ministry: the ambassadors from both the Avian Hegemony and the Reptilian Dominion had lodged formal complaints over increasingly frequent incidents of violence against their citizens in the Meadowlands, repeatedly. The complaints stretched over a period of nine years, finally ending two years ago when the situation had been “addressed.”

The Meadowlands. There it was again. Zootopia's neighboring province to the north had popped up in their investigation time and time again, and the more she saw, the less Judy felt comfortable with whatever was going on over there. Unlike Zootopia, the Meadowlands' populace was overwhelmingly from a single species: sheep. Whatever other mammal species there were tended to fall in line according to the sheep-centrist culture and laws. There wasn't much in the way of dissident thought in that province, and Judy ruffled her brow in concern. She pulled up a tool to access the ABI database and began typing names in. Within seconds, the results were at her paws.

Dawn Bellweather had made her mark in the Meadowlands as a college student, part of a radical student organization that she was undoubtedly glad the media had failed to pick up on during her campaign for mayor nine years ago. Cynthia Spots, Paul Moo, Tony Lamb – all the rest of the animals in the cabinet had coalesced around her at some point, but she couldn't track any connections between them in their ABI files. Taking a quick look at the clock to make good on her time limit, she threw her head back and wondered. What was the common denominator? What would bring so many powerful animals together behind Bellweather? She heard a familiar voice behind her speak and the animal responsible fumbled with a banana: Nick.

“Maybe it's not common ties to Bellweather you should be searching for here,” he said, looking down at the names listed in the search field, swallowing his food at last. Without invitation, he leaned in over her and brought his paws down on the keyboard, adding another name to the search list: Laura Felis. He hit the enter key and waited. “I was thinking after you left – all of these animals have a common link to Bellweather, right? But Bellweather is in Royal Prison right now. There's got to be another animal where the threads link up. Look,” he said, pointing to the results.

The modified ABI search results showed the exact same links as before, with one notable exception: every animal on the list, including Dawn Bellweather, had at one point worked for a company controlled by the Felis Group.

“Boom,” he said, smiling. “Let's connect the dots.”

Malloy Brickleberry had been the chief legal officer of Meadowlands Development, the group's real estate arm. Louis McHorn, the chief economist of Cat Communications. Paul Moo, the chief technology officer of MuzzleTime. Bellweather herself had been the personal administrative assistant to Laura Felis immediately after college.

“Young, impressionable animals work for the youngest and richest CEO in the country and get enamored by her elegance and intelligence and follow her into government,” Nick said. “Rickey Mouse isn't the one pulling the strings here.”

“That's a cute theory, but there's one problem,” Judy said, turning around to face him. “Bellweather went first. Felis never campaigned for anything in her life before she ran for mayor and defeated Lionheart in the last election. She was still running the Felis Group nine years ago.”

“Maybe Bellweather was never meant to be mayor,” Nick said, pulling up a seat next to her. “Bellweather became mayor briefly and only through sheer deceit, right? But maybe she was supposed to test the boundaries and see how far the city could go before it snapped – and she succeeded. And right after that, Felis decides that the last election was the perfect time to run for office? And a mayorship, at that? She has enough money to campaign for governor.”

“Nothing we've uncovered so far points to Felis, though, Nick! There's thinking and then there's wild assertions!” Judy said, stammering. She was as eager to find the mastermind behind this criminal web as he was, but she wasn't going to sacrifice her values in the process. In her mind, Mayor Felis was innocent until proven otherwise, and not once did Felis's tracks come up in any of these deadly plots. 

“Nothing except the relationships or the influence,” he said, pulling the tablet toward him and typing into the search bar. He looked up Rickey Mouse. “Look, Rickey Mouse's unions got the contracts for the MetroTrail expansion as a result of Lionheart's Mammal Inclusion Program, but it wasn't until after Felis took office that the project was both expanded and paid for without bonds.”

“Alright, so what?”

“No bonds means no debt. No debt means the entire thing is paid for by taxes – and that means that the council and the mayor's office have total control over the project. And look at this,” he said, opening up the internet browser and searching for cached images of the MetroTrail expansion map from when it was first announced. “Look at the proposed map of the metro expansion from when Lionheart was mayor versus when Felis took office.”

“Felis's expansion takes the rail right under the border walls,” Judy said, her eyes studying the map closely. “Nick, there's no lines under city hall.”

“There doesn't have to be,” he said. “It's the heart of the beast. They already have the access.”

Judy looked at him, studying his face and he lazily ate his breakfast. “Where did you come up with this?”

Nick pulled Judy's phone out of his pocket, tossing it at her. “Don't ask me how I know the password,” he said, grinning. She glared at him, punching him in his good arm, allowing him to take a step back and put his paws down on the table, facing her and dropping all pretense. “I called Kevin.”

Judy blinked, lost. “Who's Kevin?” she asked flatly.

“Remember that nice polar bear that held us over a freezer box two years ago?” Nick asked, leaning into his arms. “Mr. Big found the animals he was looking for, the ones who murdered Mr. Bos. Turns out they couldn't touch them.”

“And why not?”

“They're SST.” Nick said. He made sure Judy was following along before continuing. “So that got me thinking, why would the SST murder Mr. Bos? They're a private military contractor, right? At the end of the day, killing civilians is bad for business. But not so much if you can secure an even bigger contract by violating the law.”

“When the SST overtook the ZPD,” Judy said, bringing her paw to her chin, looking downward at the tablet. “They got their contract.”

“And they only won that contract after the Twentynine Palms incident.”

“Which we stopped.”

“While still on the force – an incident ordered by Rickey Mouse, who couldn't have had the influence or power to replace the ZPD but took orders from the one who does,” Nick said, folding his arms, proud of himself.

Judy's eyes snapped in front of her, the picture suddenly clicking. “Duke Weaselton said that Rickey Mouse was always on the phone with a female – someone he was afraid of.”

“Nothing more frightening than the marriage of corporate and government power,” Nick said. “Mayor Felis has both.”

“But why is – why would she be involved? There's got to be a reason behind all of this. We're still not seeing the entire picture here,” she said. 

She was about to activate the tablet again when Lola came into the kitchen, taking it off the counter and looking at the two of them. “Thirty minutes is up, sis,” she said, sticking her tongue out at her sister as Judy raised her paws up in desperation. Her ears flopped behind her head and she mouthed a no as Lola took the tablet away from her. She dropped her head on the table.

“We were so close. Just a few more minutes, Lola,” Judy said, half clawing for the tablet and half reaching out for her sister. Nick smiled at the scene. Judy looked pitiable – pathetic, even – trying to grab the device from her sister's arms. It reminded him of an incident involving a certain carrot pen not too long ago.

“Sorry, Judy. I have to finish a project over the break, and you two have been in the house long enough! Why don't you go enjoy the town?”

“What's there to see?” Judy asked, rolling her eyes.

“Well, we could always take a walk around that square we passed by yesterday. You never introduced me to that cute goat friend of yours,” Nick said, grinning and elbowing her slightly. She chafed, looking equally annoyed at both of them. “Come on, we can enjoy the day and talk shop at the same time. We don't have to be shut in while we work.”

“It's always work with you, Judy. You've never been able to enjoy yourself,” Lola said, playfulness dripping off her tongue. 

“That's not true! I-” Judy said, cutting herself off. If she was honest, it had been true. She hadn't attended a non-work related social function in years, the last time being Gazelle's concert in Zootopia promoting her new album two years prior. However, she'd decided, she wasn't going to admit that in front of her sister. “I – me and Nick,” she paused, struggling to justify her attitude, before tilting her head downward, her ears slumping behind her head in defeat.

Nick put a paw on her shoulder, causing her to look up at him. “Come on, Carrots, I'll tell you all about how I got to my little theory on our way,” he said. Judy nodded her head and asked for a moment to change into new clothes. She left Nick and Lola alone in the kitchen, where the younger rabbit took Nick by the arm, pulling him toward her. She spoke softly, her voice almost a whisper, tingling his ears.

“If you and Judy are taking on Mayor Felis, I need to know.”

“You heard?” Nick asked, taken aback. Lola patted her ears, nodding. Nick had forgotten a rabbit's specialty was eavesdropping. “I'm not even sure of it myself, to be honest. Judy's right – nothing so far has pointed in the mayor's direction and I'm grasping at straws here, but there are bombs in that city and someone is bringing them in for a reason. Mayor Felis is the only point any of these animals have in common.” He looked down and clasped his paws together, almost as in prayer. Lola placed a paw on his and looked him in the eyes.

“That self-doubt of yours is going to kill you one day,” she said, smiling. “You two are on the right track, I'm sure of it.”

“Why?”

“Someone in the mayor's office had to have been aware of the abuses going on in the Canal District for the last two years, and the abuses only ramped up when she became mayor. I'm sure that my minority violence and your bombs are linked somehow. The question you have to ask now is how high does this go?”

“And if it goes all the way to the top?” he asked.

“Then take the whole thing down.”

Silence filled the air between them now as Nick looked outside, taking in the calm country landscape. Members of the Hopps clan worked in the distant fields, occasionally popping up from their labor to wipe the sweat off their brow. He waited for her to say something or for Judy to come back down the stairs. A saving moment didn't come and his mind began to wander. Taking his paw back, he scratched behind his ears.

“And if we can't?”

“You have to,” she said, leaning in, brushing her lips against his cheek. “It would break her if you can't.”

Nick stood there, stunned, barely able to open his mouth. “It'll break all of us. Those are some serious explosives being smuggled in. Even one shipment is enough to kill a few ten thousand animals.”

“Then save them,” Lola said, still against his ear.

“How?”

“Find out why the cabinet is tolerating the violence against birds and reptiles. That all started way before your bomb scare and the ZPD shut-down.” Her ears twitched and she pulled away from him, taking her tablet in her paws and walking away, looking back at Nick as she left the room. “There's a reason for everything, Mr. Fox, from the violence to Judy getting hired as a police officer to your removal. The violence is the first piece of the puzzle – and all the pieces matter.”

As Lola walked down the hallway, Judy came into the kitchen, wearing jeans and a plaid, sleeveless shirt. She looked back toward her sister as she came up to Nick.

“What was that all about?” she asked, tilting her head sideways.

“Nothing,” Nick said, rubbing the cheek Lola had kissed. “You ready?”

Judy nodded and they left the house the same way they came, walking down the dusty country roads toward the center of town. Nick said that the revelation came to him when he brushed against the wound on his arm: they were the city's star officers until they'd been removed from the ZPD, soon afterward almost being killed by the Special Security Team just as it was poised to replace the ZPD. His suspicion fell on Cynthia Spots, the ocelot all too happy to have them removed from the force – and the animal who tried to lure them away during the course of their initial investigation – but something had bothered him: Ms. Spots was powerful, but she was only as powerful as the mayor allowed her to be. Likewise with the rest of the cabinet and their common ties to Dawn Bellweather. Either Felis had to be entirely ignorant or entirely guilty, there was no middle ground.

“I'm impressed,” Judy said as he wrapped up his explanation, shoving her arm through his and looking up at him as they walked along, the afternoon light beating down on their heads and giving no respite. 

“Well, you know me, Carrots. I like to do my homework,” he said, smiling. “Now, we actually have a shot at getting to the bottom of all this.”

She nodded in agreement, smiling. For once in the last two weeks, everything was aligning perfectly for them. They wouldn't be safe for a long while – not yet – nor would they solve the case with this new revelation, either, but they stood a better chance than yesterday. For Judy, it was all that mattered. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick caught a glimpse of window glare from a convoy making its way down the highway: supply trucks coming to Bunnyburrow for Gazelle's countryside concert tomorrow night. Perhaps he should take Judy? He looked down at her, patting her head, lost together on the road with her. His gaze fixated on her, and hers on his, they had missed the black security trucks breaking away from the convoy, taking an alternate route into the village. The red and black star of the SST was painted on the side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that took a long time to write. Once again, this chapter ended up longer than I wanted, but c'est la vie. Again, I hope you enjoyed reading. Have a happy weekend.


	21. On the Road Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to E.L.

Chapter XX: On the Road Again

Judy had taken Nick along a tour of the town, introducing him to her childhood friends, taking him to the stalls down at the central marketplace, and ultimately found themselves at Gideon Grey's Foxhound Bakery. Gideon, Judy had told him, was the reason her parents had sent her off with a bottle of fox repellent during her first week in Zootopia. Nick had almost kicked in the door to the shop after hearing about his past demeanor, only restraining himself when Judy had clung to his arm and Gideon emerged from the backroom followed by a slender female fox, cradling a kit in her arms and joining Gideon in laughter. He set down a batch of pies on the counter and looked out the glass doors onto the pathway outside, waving at Judy and Nick and running over to them. He opened the door and hugged them both, forcing them together. Nick shot an uncomfortable glance at Judy after he let go, giggling at them.

“Judy, it's so wonderful to see you again! How long has it been? Two years now? You just have to see my son. Come on, come on!” he said, pushing them inside. Judy shrugged at Nick, trying to keep his mild annoyance from boiling over into outright anger. She could, through his ruffled brows, that he was trying desperately to contain himself from punching Gideon in front of his family.

“Well, well, well – you must be Judy Hopps,” the female fox said, lightly stroking her son's head, soothing him. “My husband wouldn't stop talking about you when he heard you were back in town. My name is Marian, nice to meet you. And you must be?” she asked, looking at Nick.

“Nick Wilde, Judy's partner,” Nick said, crossing his arms. His voice was tense and he kept shooting glances into the display window to get a glimpse at Gideon behind him. Seeing that the younger fox was completely hapless around his child, Nick began to relax. He took deep breaths and began counting in his mind. He couldn't assault an animal in front of his family. “What did you husband say, exactly?”

“You're Nick Wilde?” Gideon said, turning Nick around and grasping his paws in a firm grip, shaking them wildly up and down. “My God, it's so good to finally meet you! We need more foxes like you for my son to look up to when he grows up!” A smile broke out on Gideon's face so wide that he could barely keep his eyes open. Nick turned his torso around, still shaking Gideon's paws, distress dawning on his face. Marian rolled her eyes and laughed.

“You two are pretty famous around these parts. Gideon kept telling me that Ms. Hopps over here saved Zootopia from that Bellweather gal two years ago and you helped her. He said that Judy was the best animal that ever came out of Bunnyburrow and that you were the perfect role model for our son,” she said, shaking her head. “I'm not from these parts myself, so I can't say I'd know, but if you two are everything my damn husband makes you out to be, then please, take seats. We can whip something up for you that'll make your mouth water so good you'll remember it all the way back to the big city.”

Gideon nodded, eagerly returning behind the counter. “You like blueberries, Mr. Wilde? I make a mean blueberry pie,” he said, picking an apron off a hook on a wall and calling out as he went into the back room. Marian got out of his way and sat down by the pair at the counter, still cradling her son in her arms. The child had barely stirred since Gideon began raising his voice and hollering – perhaps he knew a future lifetime of this loud, boisterous, good-natured fox lay ahead of him and he was simply accustomed to him by now, even at such a tender age. Nick couldn't help but laugh. He cupped his paws around his muzzle and called out to Gideon. 

“I love blueberries! We'll take some pie, sure.”

Judy smiled, reaching under the counter to grab at his paws, looking up at him. 

“Gideon's changed a lot since when we were kids, Nick. He's a decent animal, now, and I'd like to think he's my friend,” Judy said, looking over to Marian. “Cute kit.”

“We named him Robin. I think it fits, don't you?” she asked.

Judy and Nick smiled as they looked at the child. Nick couldn't stay angry for long and his ears folded back behind his head and Marian stroked her son's fur. He looked over at Judy, studying her. What did she think about kids? He knew that rabbits were notorious for their rapid and hyperactive breeding cycles, but Judy had never displayed any of that in the years he'd known her. She was almost the opposite, devoting herself entirely to aspects of her life that drew her away from family – he was sure that the last few days were the longest she'd talked to her family since moving to Zootopia. 

Judy spoke and acted for him as he stared at Robin with a glazed look, stroking the child's fur with her own paws and chatting with Marian about life in Bunnyburrow over the last few years. She and Gideon had met shortly after he opened his business, with her delivering fresh fruits and flour to the bakery every morning. It hadn't taken long for them to develop a business partnership, and before long, a physical one. They'd married in the span that Judy had been divorced from Bunnyburrow, but Marian let Judy know that she was most definitely still a household name in the Grey home. Not a day went by that Gideon talked about the Hopps family – mostly owing to their business dealings but partly owing to Judy's status as the star of the town, a ray of hope for any animal who wanted to be more than they were and wanted to work hard to break out and succeed: a poster child of the Zootopian Dream. 

After about a half hour, Gideon emerged again, bringing by two pies and a tub of vanilla ice cream. Nick's mouth salivated at the sight, looking between the food and the fox, conflicted over whether it was right to be so graciously accepting a gift from an animal that so deeply hurt Judy. She made the choice for him, digging her fork into the pie and loading it with a scoop of ice cream. She made a content noise as she savored the flavor, grabbing Nick's face after she finished.

“Nick, you have to try this!” she said, moving in for another piece.

Gideon encouraged him. Losing his trepidation, he began to eat, losing himself in the desserts and finding that, if nothing else, Gideon was an exceptional baker. They shared conversation and revelry as they ate, chatting up who had come and gone to the town since Judy had left, what their plans for the future were, and what life in Zootopia was like. Nick, the only urbanite-by-birth in the room, found himself lost when the conversation took itself toward farmhands and country life, but was able to jump back in when they began talking about the police academy and what life was like as the first fox officer in ZPD's history. It seemed strange to him, three foxes and a rabbit enjoying themselves together, almost as if they shared a common history and story, but the scene set him at ease. He lost himself in the moment.

Before long, the sun began to set. Judy made an effort to get up from her seat, but collapsed into Nick when she tried to do so. Nick, similarly tired, simply laid his head down on the counter, looking at the two foxes at the table and tucking his ears behind his head. 

“Sorry, it looks like we both have a bit of a food coma,” Nick said, trying to laugh and holding his stomach. “Would you be willing to drive us home?”

“Oh, we'll do you one better, dear,” Marian said, Judy's head but speaking to Nick. She looked at her husband, who only offered a nod. “Why don't you stay at our house for the night? It'll be a chance for you two to get to chat with Gideon a little longer.”

Both Nick and Judy grunted in approval. It was the only confirmation they would need. They graciously accepted Marian's invitation, and now, after having spent an hour over scotch with Gideon, Nick and Judy shared a futon in the Grey's living room. Their home wasn't as large as the Hopps's by any means. By some measures, it felt almost like a duplex in Zootopia, with its brick walls and bay windows with cracked lead paint pealing off the walls. Despite these deficiencies, or perhaps, because of them, Judy found herself immersed in the rich text of Gideon's life that had been so off-limits to her until now. She laid next to Nick, who seemed to be able to find sleep almost anywhere, and stared at the ceiling, losing herself to thought.

What exactly were they? All this time, the years they'd spent at each others' sides, protecting each other and the city from evils within and without, and they'd hardly been able to get past ribbing the other in public. Now, it seemed that their intimacy, physical and emotional, grew day-by-day, hour-by-hour, filling the void that their absence from the ZPD had left. 

She reached out and scratched Nick behind the ears, watching his reaction. He took a paw and grabbed hers, yawning and smacking his lips, barely breaking his snores. Why did he tolerate this? Did he want this? Want her? She knew Nick was naturally playful and outgoing, but why did he always surround himself with her and make her life his own? At times, it felt like Nick had an ulterior motive, perhaps, she thought, owing to the trickster nature of his species. Perhaps she was reading too much into their relationship – partners, after all, had to trust each other with their lives, and it would be natural for Nick to want to associate so much with an animal that he had to be confident would save his life one day. But there was a third option, lined up in the meals they shared after hours or their dates to the police union balls: that Nick cared for her, and she for him. The animal she was lying next to, she thought, was more than a partner and more than a friend; at once part of her and distinct in his own right, someone she could trust and place her life in, and someone she couldn't live without. 

At this, Judy had to blink back tears, using her other paw to claw at Nick's ears and feel the skin under his fur, watching his face contort in annoyance and amusement as the stimulation. She smiled, bringing her face to the back of his neck and pressing into him, rubbing her forehead along his fur and allowing it to tickle her. She kissed his neck and brought an arm around him, intertwining their legs so he wouldn't get away if he rolled over in his sleep and laid her head down to rest. After twenty-three years, she'd found another soul that she could call her own. She thanked him for it – thanked him and, ultimately, she declared silently, loved him. Sleep took her, then, and kept her long. 

She woke past noon to Nick amusing himself on her phone, caught red-handed but otherwise in healthy spirits. She took her phone back from him, surveying the damage he'd done to her battery life as they laid in the futon, endlessly talking for hours on end as the day passed them by. Marian and Gideon, he'd told her, had gone to the bakery for the day, to be back by night. The two of them had been entrusted with looking after the house and the young kit, who Nick pointed was sleeping soundly on a cushioned chair just outside of the kitchen. They'd been roped into playing the baby-sitters, it seemed, but between their conversation, drawn between Judy's life in Bunnyburrow and Nick's childhood memories, and his wish that his father could have been by his side as Gideon would be for his son, hours passed by like minutes. It wasn't long before the Grey's came home, laughing together as they crossed the threshold, as Gideon tossed an envelope onto Judy's lap.

“What's this?” she asked, opening it and finding several tickets inside.

“Those are tickets to Gazelle's concert tonight. I figured you two could join me. I love her music, but I'd hate to go alone and Marian flaked out on me,” he said, scratching behind his ears much in the same way that Nick did. Perhaps it was a common fox mannerism?

“I didn't flake out, you know tonight is when my shows come on,” she said, defensively, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “Honestly, Judy, you'd better get used to that one.” She pointed at Nick. “Male foxes are so dramatic.”

Judy seemed flustered, struggling to form a proper response, but Nick cut in, saving her. “I think she's plenty used to me by now, Mrs. Grey,” Nick said, giving Judy a friendly elbow to the arm. Judy tried to respond, looking up at him and ultimately shaking her head. She couldn't dispute was was indisputable. She followed Marian into the kitchen, helping her prepare meals for later, leaving Nick with Gideon in the den. The two foxes stared at each other, not quite sure how to react. Gideon was the first to speak.

“She's a strong one, ain't she?” he asked, turning his head toward the two females. Nick simply grunted, not yet fully awake. “I remember when we were kids – she had flare, then, too. It doesn't surprise me at all that she'd be able to save an entire city like that. We're all proud of her, especially me.”

Nick stared at him; Gideon's face seemed contorted between a mixture of reverence and remorse. “Why's that? I thought you two didn't get along as kids.”

“Oh we didn't. I was Judy's arch-enemy for the longest time. I had a lot of problems back then: personal and emotional and spiritual. It wasn't till I found God that I let up on all that anger. I started to forgive myself for the pain I caused,” Gideon said, stuffing his paws in his pockets, his tail lazily waving from side to side. “And then Judy went off and left Bunnyburrow before I got a chance to make amends to her, but she left to serve and protect something bigger – something that I'm sure would make sure that us foxes weren't forced into the kind of life I had to live.”

He paused, looking at Nick, taking a paw and placing it on his shoulder. “And then you came along, and you two worked so well together to bring down that Bellweather lady that everyone here couldn't help but think it had to come out of a movie. We've worked so hard to make amends and patch rivalries out here in the countryside and you two up and made it a big issue. Animals like me can get along with folks like the Hopps just fine – and the whole world knows it now. There's no more reason for animals to get upset with one another, now that you two proved it was possible.”

“So what is it that we represent to you, exactly?” Nick asked, folding his arms and taking a step back. He'd never experienced a fox act so openly to a total stranger before. He'd never known one to trust another so intimately. The stereotype of the lone-fox, skulking his way through the world was so deeply ingrained in Nick's mind that it baffled him that Gideon was a real animal. Before long, he had his answer.

“Hope,” Gideon said, bringing Nick in for a hug. Only slightly reluctantly, Nick returned it – the smell of blueberry pie wafting from the kitchen.

The rest of the day passed peacefully as the four of them sat around the den eating sweets and chatting. It was before sundown that Gideon got up from the couch and took his keys from the coffee table, motioning for Nick and Judy to follow him. They obliged him, and Marian got up from her seat, holding Robin in her arms and followed them to the door, waving to them as they got into Gideon's truck and drove off. As they crossed into the dirt roadway leading away from the Greys' house, Judy could hear Marian shout after them: “Have fun! Get home safe!”

The drive to the market and fairgrounds was uneventful by any reasonable measure, broken only by the occasional pothole. As they circled around for a space to park, Judy noticed an increasing number of familiar looking rabbits making their way into the crowd, itself multi-species and exceedingly diverse for such a provincial community. As they pulled around into a space, Judy saw the familiar white bird logo of a certain senator – it was her family. She could barely recognize some of her younger brothers and sisters who had grown in the two years since she'd gone, but Lola's presence definitely confirmed that most of the Hopps clan had turned out to attend the concert. She leapt out of the truck to run up to her sister, jumping up and hugging her. Nick followed closely with Gideon not far behind.

“Judy! You finally decided to have a bit of fun, I see?” Lola asked, grabbing her sister and nodding approvingly. Nick stood by her and placed his arm around Judy, looking off toward the makeshift stage at the center of the crowd. 

“Well, I figured that being pent up in a house every day would be bad for her health – a bunny's got to get out sometime, you know,” Nick said, breaking out into a wide smile. Judy shot him a glare while Lola laughed, looking over at Gideon. 

“Gideon! It's so good to see you! You came here with my sister?”

“Oh yeah, I bought these two their tickets. There's no way I'd let them miss Gazelle while she was in Bunnyburrow,” he said, placing his arms around the two of them and his head in between them. “Who knows what kind of trouble they'd get into otherwise, especially this one,” he said, nudging Judy. It was her fate, it seemed, to be constantly surrounded by jokers. She rolled her eyes, placing her paws over the muzzles of the two foxes as she saw spotlights come on near the stage, itself being bathed in a fine smoke and mist coming from fog machines. Colored lasers began airing a complicated light show amid the fog and the crowd hushed itself for a brief second, immediately breaking out into cheers and applause as Gazelle took the stage, holding a microphone to her mouth.

“Hello Bunnyburrow!” she shouted, eliciting shouts from the crowd. “Are you ready to have a good time tonight?” 

The crowd roared again. Judy could see several rabbits up from hopping up and down excitedly as the pop star leaned down and blew them a kiss. One of them fell over. She thanked the crowd again before heading into her set - “Try Everything” being her opener. The familiar beat and rhythm got Nick to dance – or at least, make an attempt to dance – with Judy in the packed fairground, pulling off the same dance moves that were old in 1991 but unfamiliar enough to the young crowd to be fresh and exciting. Live long enough, Nick assumed, and even one's worst failings would be considered cool again. 

As the song ended, the fog grew thicker and the beat changed rapidly, shifting to a new, bass-heavy electronic pop song from Gazelle's newest album. The fog and the lasers made sense to Nick, given the album's heavy reliance on borderline techno synthesis, but something seemed off. Wasn't half the point of a concert supposed to be the ability to actually see the performer? The clouds continued to thicken, enveloping Gazelle, the stage, and the crowd with a dense miasma. Nick could hear some members of the audience close to him coughing from having to inhale the sheer volume of gas being released by the machines. 

The music cut off and floodlights cut through the smoke, though the pillars of light were barely visible where Nick and Judy were standing. A calm, computerized voice echoed across the hills.

“We're sorry – due to an equipment malfunction, we ask you to please leave the venue in a safe, orderly fashion.”

Nick reached out for Judy's paw, finding her covering her eyes with her shirt and coughing. He led her away from the stage, his eyes beginning to water and the wound on his arm beginning to burn. It felt as if someone were pouring menthol over his flesh. He stopped suddenly, allowing Judy to bump into him to wipe her face on his shirt. Long tendrils of mucus were dripping from her nose as he turned around, trying to find Gideon and Lola.

“This isn't fog,” Nick said, panicking. He could faintly see the outline of a red fox like him through the haze, several rabbits in tow behind him. He took a deep breathe, smelling the air. Fifteen years of smoking while he was out on the streets had given his lungs a bit of an immunity to these agents, but he could taste the CS gas in the air.

He felt a heavy paw on his shoulder, turning around to see a wolf in black armor and a gas mask look down at him, assault rifle at the low ready. 

“Sir, you're going to have to come with me,” the wolf said, bringing his other paw back to his rifle to begin to steady it. 

Nick stood there, petrified. What could he do? He was surrounded by innocent bystanders on all sides trying to make their way out of the fairgrounds and Judy was heaving behind him. He was frozen in place, unable to get a word out. His tail shot up from behind him. As the wolf began to bring his rifle to the high ready, a large backpack hit him in the face, causing him to stumble. Nick noticed that the campaign pin of a certain avian senator featured prominently on the face. He looked between the bag and the wolf before he felt his paw being taken by an animal much smaller than him, breaking off into a run. Looking down, he saw Lola Hopps and Gideon all but sprinting next to him. Judy struggled to keep up, coughing and wheezing as they went, herself almost vomiting after they cleared the gas cloud.

“Smokers, huh?” Nick asked when they were clear of the gas, still running through the parking lot.

“Don't tell my mother! She'd kill me!” Lola said, darting her eyes over to Judy and laughing at her suffering. “For once it pays not to be the good one!”

“Who was that animal, Nick?” Gideon asked, slowing down and asking for a moment, bending down and heaving in a great breath. Gideon may have been immune to the gas but he wasn't immune to the running. 

“Judy and I may have made some enemies back in Zootopia who may or may not have machine guns,” he said, bringing his paws to the top of his head and catching his breath. “Oh damn everything, speak of the devil.”

Nick pointed toward the gas cloud, quickly revealing three troopers stepping out of it with their weapons at the ready, pointed at Nick and Judy.

“You two! On the ground! Now! You're both under arrest!”

“Hey hey, we get it! But come on, buddy, my pal here is still reeling from the gas cloud over there, can't we have a moment?” Nick said, shrugging and laying his hands out as if asking a question from a casual acquaintance. 

“Shut up!” the trooper said, walking over to him and knocking him in the gut with the butt of his rifle. Nick collapsed on the ground clutching his stomach, nearly vomiting himself. 

“Oh, shit that hurt!” Nick shouted. “Not like how Saint used to beat me, but still!”

As one of the troopers hovered over Judy, herself still reeling from the gas, vomiting all over herself, Nick noticed that the trooper farthest away from them was awash in light, almost as if he was being lit up by a spotlight.

Or headlights, as the crash of a pick-up truck into the trooper quickly attested. The two troopers next to Nick and Judy turned around and found their colleague pinned against another truck, blood pooling beneath him. Two rabbits, one of whom was severely obese, hopped out of the truck and started yelling at the wolves in black. Nick, struggling through his pain, could barely understand what was going on. He saw the wolves ready their rifles, followed by a flash of gray. Before he knew what was happening, he was being helped off the ground by Gideon, who handed him his car keys.

“Run, Nick! Take Judy with you! We'll hold these boys off as long as we can!” he shouted, turning toward the troopers and jumping atop the one closest to him, biting down into the unprotected flesh between his gas mask and body armor. Nick saw Lola and other members of the Hopps clan fighting the troopers as well, though with their size disadvantage, they were being thrown about like dolls, only able to land hits due to sheer numbers. 

Nick grabbed Judy, only now getting over the effects of the GS gas to comprehend what was going on, by the arm and ran toward Gideon's truck. Jumping inside, he started the engine and reversed all through the parking lot, barely missing several injured bystanders on the sides. As he found the exit and shifted into drive, he could see several new troopers exiting the gas cloud to join the scuffle. He heard gunshots and screams ring out in equal volume as he took the highway exit out of town, back toward Zootopia, flooring it the entire way. Judy's gaze was transfixed on the mirror, unwilling to look back entirely. Nick couldn't tell if there tears in her eyes were from the gas or from leaving her family to fend against the wolves. None of it mattered now, of course. Bunnyburrow, by now, was long gone. A case even more violent than the scene they left behind was ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a lot longer to write because I took some time off from writing to mourn the passing of my grandfather. The chapter is subsequently dedicated to him and his memory.
> 
> This concludes the fourth arc of the story. It seems with every chapter that Nick and Judy dive further and further into the storm. Considering the distinct lack of action in this arc, I consider it the "eye" of the story. What awaits them on the other side, I wonder? 
> 
> Once again, thank you for your enjoyment and support. I hope you liked this chapter. Thank you again.


	22. Not in the City

**Chapter XXI: Not in the City**

 

It was Judy who forced him to pull over on the highway shoulder, telling him that they needed to switch drivers otherwise Nick would get involved in a crash. Her plan of driving the truck the rest of the way to Zootopia was derailed, however, when she found she was too short to reach the accelerator of Gideon's truck. She looked to Nick, shaking her head.

 

“I,” she began. “I can't reach the pedal.”

 

“And I can't keep driving,” Nick said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. She could see that the CS gas hadn't entirely left him unscathed. His eyes were bloodshot and the fur around his head raised, as if in alarm. She reached out to touch him, feeling a cool sensation creep across her paw like his fur was covered in menthol.

 

“We should get a room,” she said. “Get some rest, maybe wash off the gas from our fur.”

 

Nick nodded, switching places with Judy again and taking off down the highway. As Nick drove further into the hinterlands, the radio signal began to cut out until there was nothing but static. Judy turned off the radio, earning thanks from the tired fox.

 

“How did they even manage to find us?” Judy asked, staring over at her partner. Nick shrugged while keeping his eyes on the road.

 

“Could've been the cameras from the train station. There's only so many stops on that line.”

 

“But Bunnyburrow, specifically?” Judy asked. She reached into her pocket, feeling her phone vibrate. She saw her mother calling her. As she moved to unlock it, Nick glanced over, taking it from her.

 

“Or,” he said. “they tracked your phone.” He used his free paw to take the data card from the phone and threw the rest of it out the window. Judy's stared at him, then turned around in her seat, looking back toward the black patch of highway they had left behind. Her mouth and her ears dropped in tandem as she faced Nick again to protest. He simply held up a paw, stopping her. “I'll buy you a new one, Carrots. If they're still tracking your phone, which I think they did, it won't do them much good to go out into the middle of an abandoned road.”

 

“I still need to contact my mom.”

 

“Why not up here?” Nick said, pulling into an exit lane toward a tiny hamlet illuminated by a sign for a local motel. He drove into the parking lot of a diner, making sure to hide it behind an old shipping container that happened to be sitting next to the building before getting out of the truck. Judy followed.

 

“Here?” Judy asked.

 

“You said it back there. I'm too tired to keep on driving safely and we need to get this gas off of our fur. I figure that motel might as well be as good of a plan as any for the night,” Nick said, stretching his back so it arched and pulling his arms behind his head. Judy could tell that he was exhausted, although her heart wouldn't stop pounding. She still couldn't believe what had just happened, or where they were – everything was happening so fast that she could barely process the information she wanted to find out, let alone the information forced upon her by circumstance. They made their way over to the hotel, Nick checking over his shoulder almost constantly. When they arrived at the motel, a short, disinterested old goat greeted them. Sitting behind a short, formica counter and reading a newspaper, he chimed up without ever looking them in the eye.

 

“Thirty bucks a night,” he said, holding a hoof out for the money. Nick fished in his pockets for his wallet, handing it over. The goat looked at it, reached under the counter and laid the keys on the desk. “Room fourteen.”

 

Without saying anything else, they trudged off out of the office and into the parking lot. The motel was a simple, two story structure, with lattice-work covering the upper floor and stairs at opposite ends. It didn't have an elevator. Judging from the trucks in the parking lot, this place was popular with workers from local oil fields and construction sites. A tour van from a church group was parked elsewhere. They could see the faint, blue glow of cathode tube televisions pierce through the blinds of occupied apartments. Their room was at the very end of the building, the last on the first floor.

 

Opening the door, Nick all but collapsed on the floor while Judy surveyed the room. There was a single bed in the middle and a TV atop a small desk right across from it. Aside from a small desk and a rotary telephone, the only other décor in the room was a plastic ferm parked next to the bathroom. Judy helped Nick off the floor, pointing to the other room.

 

“Come on, Nick,” she said. “You go take a shower and get that sticky stuff off of your fur. I still have to call my mom.”

 

Nick grunted at the suggestion and offered resistance the entire way to the bathroom, but ultimately complied when Judy pushed him inside. He didn't even bother closing the door. Judy walked over to the bed and faced away, sitting down on the bed as she picked up the phone. She knew her mother's number by heart.

 

As the shower started, Judy trained one ear on the sighs from her partner behind her and the ringing of the telephone beside her. She waited and waited. Four rings passed, then five, until she got an answer. Her frantic mother greeted her on the other end.

 

“Hello? Who's this?” her mother asked.

 

“Mom, mom – calm down, it's me, Judy.”

 

“Oh, thank God you're alright, Judy. We got a call from the regional hospital saying your brothers and sisters were admitted there, but then we asked about you and no one knew where you were.”

 

“Mom, what happened?”

 

“Gunshots, Judy! Gunshots! Can you believe that! Me and your father were just about to head out there!”

 

Judy could hear her father raising his voice in the background, asking if it was her. Her mother hummed affirmatively, allowing her father to take the phone.

 

“Judy! Judy! You're alright? Where are you?” he asked. She could hear the panic and anguish in his voice, strained as only a father who'd almost lost a son could be.

 

“I'm alright, dad. I can't really say where I am right now. What happened, exactly? Who got shot?”

 

“Lola and Willy are in the hospital. We just got off the phone with the doctors. They say they'll both be alright, but Willy got hit in the knees,” he said, pausing. It took her father a while – she could tell he was collecting himself for the revelation. “They said they don't think he'll be able to walk normal again. Maybe if we shell out for physical therapy but they said his entire joint's destroyed.”

 

“Oh my God,” Judy said, whispering, placing a paw over her mouth. She looked down toward the stained carpet in front of her, trying to keep her composure.

 

“And Lola?”

 

“Lola's doing fine, honey. She got shot, yeah, but a kind animal pulled her off to the side and gave her help when she needed it. She'll be in bed for the rest of the month, but otherwise it didn't hit anything major.”

 

“I know she'll be pissed that she can't campaign in an election year,” Judy joked. As she laughed, tears began to well up in the corner of her eyes. She couldn't keep composed any longer. “So she's doing fine, then?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, she's doing fine. We just have to hope and pray and visit her to keep her in high spirits till she recovers.”

 

“And anybody else? Did anyone else get hit?” she asked, wiping the tears away. Her voice began quivering.

 

“No one from our family, no, but,” her father said, trailing off. “Gideon's dead, sweetie. Shot in the head.”

 

Judy stared at the floor in silence. Her father said some words and Judy played along, but she'd stopped paying attention at that point. She told her father that she was safe and away from harm and that she'd call him soon. No, she didn't need to speak to mom again. She hung up the receiver and placed her head in her paws, the carpet barely creeping into her vision through her digits and her tears.

 

She didn't notice when the shower stopped or when Nick sat down beside her. Nor did she notice the tears coming down her face. All she heard was his voice and she leaned into him, hugging him, grasping him as hard as she could. He returned it, gripping her in his arms and stroking her ears behind her head. Naked except for a towel, he let her cry into his chest, quietly sobbing and venting her grief. It took him several long, pained minutes before he mustered the strength to lift her head up and look her in the eyes.

 

“What happened?” he asked, cupping her face in his paws.

 

“Nick, it's-” she said, pausing. She looked over he shoulder, as if scanning the window for anyone outside, waiting to burst in. “Gideon, he's-”

 

“Dead?”

 

“Yeah.” Her voice was barely a whisper. Nick could barely hear it. He brought his head down on top of hers both to comfort her and hear her better. She smiled at that, rubbing tears away in his fur.

 

“Anyone else?” he asked.

 

“Lola and Willy are in the hospital, but they should be fine. Willy won't be working at the plant anymore, though.”

 

“Probably for the best. Oil doesn't suit bunnies as much as dirt. I bet he'll make a mean carrot farmer, now, though,” he said, trying – grasping at a silver lining in the situation. Judy sighed, trying to laugh. She brought herself away from him, looking at him through the crystalline haze that had formed in her vision from the crying. Who was he, this fox? The one who's been with her since the very beginning – the one who'd be with her till the end. Was he some sort of cosmic intervention in her life, forcing her to reconcile with those who'd harmed her and all the harm she had done? Or was he himself a silver lining? Something to be cherished and held deeply? Perhaps even loved.

 

She reached her paw around his neck, drawing his face close to hers, bringing their mouths together in a dance that was years in the making. Nick, for once, didn't have anything to say; he returned the kiss, long and yearning, and was the one to break it. He looked into her eyes and before long surged back into her. This time, they met with urgency and passion, falling down onto the bed as Judy wrapped herself around him. They were sloppy and desperate, Judy out of inexperience and Nick out of something more – a desire that had driven him for the past two years to protect her that had grown into a love for her.

 

Their bodies twisted themselves on the bed as Nick undid her clothes, at times with Judy's assistance, more often without. For a while they laid there naked, staring into the other, taking themselves in in a seriousness that was uncommon in their working relationship. They did this as if to confirm that this was consensual in all senses of the word – that they wanted this, yearned for it, and built up to it before finally committing themselves to each other.

 

Judy learned two things at that moment: that, despite nature making them to be natural enemies, they'd been able to make it work in ways that her father was sure to disapprove; and that she was thankful that they were doing this in a random countryside motel: the thin walls of her apartment aside, she was a screamer.

 

When they had finished, Nick rolled over, barely able to get off of her before his snores betrayed his sleep. Judy shook her head, petting his – he'd earned his rest, she thought, smiling at her fox. She took a quick shower, closing the door and drying herself lightly without dressing to minimize disturbing him before returning to the bed, pulling the blanket over the both of them. In a pose she was rapidly getting used to, she used his chest as a pillow and buried her nose into his fur, allowing his scent to fill her. She smiled one last time before closing her eyes, taking herself away from the world.

 

Floating off into space, she drifted away from Nick and allowed herself to be carried off – a force acting upon her in a way totally alien and unknown to her, providing her a sensation of deep solace that she didn't know was possible. At least, not since she'd started working for the ZPD. She felt a soft thud on her back, and looking around, seemed to have been transported to a verdant green field. Looking down in front of her, she now found herself kneeling in front of a pearl-white gravestone. The glare from the stone hurt her eyes and she brought her paws to her face, dropping her patrol cap in the process. She picked it up and studied it – four silver stars adorned the front of her cap. She studied it, wondering how the rank got there – if she'd accidentally picked up the commissioner's hat by mistake. She looked behind her and saw a fox standing there, his uniform freshly pressed and his paw reaching out to her shoulder.

 

“Let's go,” the fox said.

 

She opened her eyes, gasping, waking up to Nick sitting cross-legged in front of the television. Judy turned over in the bed to look out the window – daylight peered through the blinds. Judy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and turned to the TV.

 

“Nick, what's going on?” she asked, sitting up in bed and wrapping the blanket around herself.

 

“Come here, look at this,” Nick said, waving his paw at her and urging her toward him. The TV was tuned to ZNN. The headline couldn't have shocked them more.

 

_“Laura Felis of Zootopia to Enter Senate Race – Aims to be Kingdom's First Female Prime Minister”_

 

They looked at the screen in horror as Mayor Felis took the stage, Cynthia Spots by her side, as balloons and confetti rained down on the auditorium where this particular conference was being held. Now, it seemed, the die had been cast – and they were running out of time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this is a surprising feeling - being able to go by my scheduled plot-line without ending up writing ten pages worth of manuscript. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Thank you for reading.


	23. Way Down in the Hole

Chapter XXII: Way Down in the Hole

Camera flashes came and went in a rapid cascade of fluttering light. This was her moment – she owned the hall. As the roars of the crowd began to settle down, she outstretched her paws, waving at them: her subjects – her slaves. Smiling as she stepped up to the podium, she shook paws with an elephant in a pinstriped suit, looking out onto the sea of supporters waving flags and placards bearing her name. She cleared her throat and stood down the teleprompter. It was time.

“Two and a half years ago, you elected me to serve you as mayor of the great city of Zootopia,” she began, eliciting applause from the crowd, which she quickly calmed with raised paws. “Two years ago, this was a broken city. A city ruled by those who sought to incite violence and hatred among one another – who sought to hide the truth from you to protect their political hides. Back then, this city was rife with malice and avarice – it was turning, before our very eyes, into something we neither wanted nor understood.

“Two and a half years ago, we stood at a turning point: move forward into the future or regress into our baser selves. We took that first step forward, and now, having served you – my faithful animals: the strength in my arm and the holders of my dreams – we have accomplished in two and a half years what we set out to do in four. We cleaned up the city government. We sacked the corrupt big business bosses keeping districts like Tundra Town from prospering. We brought government back to you. We've expanded mass transit and lowered taxes and done everything we could to undo the damage done to this city by the previous administration. We, the citizens of this city, won against entrenched interests and brought about a future you deserve. And even though some of these things weren't popular, we did them anyway – not because they would get us votes in the next election, but because they were the right thing to do. Yes, I was sorry to see Chief Bogo go. Likewise with the 'Heroes of Zootopia', Ms. Hopps and Mr. Wilde – but I will never apologize for taking down more agents of corruption who, despite their record of service, worked against you.”

The crowd hushed itself when she brought up the police indictments, but she held up her paws, as if assuring them. Everything will be alright, her body said, place your trust in me and I can make your pain and anger go away. She looked down at the podium for a singular moment, returning her eyes to the crowd, though still tilting her head slightly downward – from the angle of the television cameras, it was just enough to give off an air of unassailable confidence.

“Now, having served as your mayor – having driven the dregs out from our city and bringing its sins into the light, I now seek to do the same with our nation. Today, I promise you that I will do the same to the Animal Kingdom what I've done to the city of Zootopia. Today, I promise you that together, we will restore strength and vitality to the nation. Today, I am declaring my candidacy for the Senate, and with the endorsement of the Law and Justice Party, am entering my name for contention as Prime Minister.”

Flags unfurled themselves behind her and music began to play, quietly screaming through speakers too feeble to drown out the screaming of the crowd gathered in front of her. ZNN switched its camera feed, panning out of the auditorium to reveal a packed audience, with easily tens of thousands of Zootopians in attendance. It was the kind of showing Mayor Lionheart could only have dreamed of. It was the kind of attendance that horrified Nick and Judy.

They sat there, naked, in front of the motel room's small television set. Nick wrapped his arm around Judy instinctively, holding her tight against him as the feed cut to anchors in ZNN's office discussing Mayor Felis's chances of winning the premiership. 

“What the hell is she doing?” Nick asked. He didn't direct the question to Judy, per se, but was thinking out loud, leaning back against the bed and staring at the ceiling. “She's going to detonate the city and run for prime minister at the same time?”

“If Lola wasn't in the hospital – and if someone hadn't thrown my cell phone out of the car – we could ask her for her opinion. She's been through enough shenanigans to take a guess at what she's at,” Judy said.

“She's after power, that's for damn sure. But what the hell is her game. Why did she maneuver around the ZPD to get the SST installed into power? Why was her chief of staff trying to force us out to begin with? If this is their ultimate goal, you'd think that getting our endorsement would've been a bigger deal than trying to kill us,” Nick said, bringing his free paw behind his head and scratching his ears. 

“Maybe it runs deeper than that. Maybe it's not necessarily the premiership she's after,” Judy said.

“It's the highest office in the nation, why wouldn't she be drawn to it?”

“I don't know, Nick. But I don't think she's after the office itself – she's after what she can do when she sits in that chair.”

“And what does blowing up half of Zootopia have to do with that? I mean, even for me, this is a pretty long con – so many things have to go perfectly into place that-” Nick paused, looking at her. His ears stood up. So did hers.

“She couldn't afford our endorsement. Or Chief Bogo's or the police union's or anyone else from the ZPD. She needed us out of the way. One thing goes wrong, and she's left with a lot of bodies and not a lot to show for it.”

“No bodies if we do our job right,” Nick said, standing up. Judy, for once, didn't avert her eyes. She tossed him his clothes and stood up herself, launching into Nick and hugging him before he had a chance to react.

“That's the Nick Wilde I know,” she said, looking up at him from his chest. She turned around, picking her own clothes off the floor. He piped up while they were getting dressed.

“So, what's the plan?”

“Head back to Zootopia. I scheduled a meeting with Bos's brother at a cafe that he frequents,” Judy said, looking at the cable box for the time. It was still early in the morning – if they left now, they'd have a realistic chance of making it to downtown by noon.

“You found him?”

Judy hummed a yes, putting her shirt back on and hopping over to the door. She waited for Nick, leaning against the wall and looking at him. This might be the last chance they'd get to spend a night alone together before the storm hit. She walked over to him and leaned upward, kissing him. He gleefully obliged, tilting his head to the side in bemusement.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Making a girl's dreams come true,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. “We haven't tackled anything this big since the incident two years ago. We've got a shot to save the entire city all over again. You know, millions and millions of animals.”

“Hundreds,” Nick said, patting her head and looking down at her, patting her head. She tilted her head to the side, matching his slant and throwing his paw off her ears. 

“Excuse me?”

“Hundreds of millions of animals live in this country. We're going to save them all. Come on, let's get to work,” he said, grabbing her paw and dragging her behind him. They checked out of their room at the front desk – now manned by an equally disinterested panther who seemed to be watching them with one eye and the TV with another. 

Walking into the streets of the small, unknown town, they found a host of shiftless characters squatting by the highway and diner, chain smoking cigarettes and sharing a drink out of something in a paper bag. The countryside, Judy observed, had seen better days – if it weren't for the mills in Warrens-Den and the freight yards that carried Bunnyburrow's crops to the cities, she wondered if the wandering bands of ragged rabbits could be her own family one day. She shifted her eyes to the truck, still parked behind a shipping container. Someone had broken into it overnight, stealing the radio, but as Nick fumbled around for the keys, they found that it still worked. The data chip from Judy's phone had gone unnoticed by the thieves, either too small or too insignificant to notice – it sat safely under a matchbook in the center console. Nick pulled the truck out of the parking lot and made it back onto the highway, disregarding the speed limit in place as they flew towards Zootopia. The glint of Savanna Square's great towers could be seen far off in the distance, barely shadows of glass and steel against the sky. 

They went a few hours without saying a word, Judy focused intently on watching the skyline grow in their windshield. They watched the rural countryside give way regular intervals of pit stops along the highway, then to the suburbia that existed only an hour's train ride away from the city, finally coming across a regular flow of traffic in a town whose name Judy forgot, but could see was booming as a result of Zootopia's influence. Construction cranes dotted the sky as work trucks filled the highway. Animals with bright orange vests walked along closed-off sections of roadway pouring concrete and directing heavy trucks in and out of access points. 

Nick spoke up first, taking Judy away from the sights and distractions. “You know, they'll probably be able to track us as soon as we get there.”

“Yeah,” Judy said, still staring out the window. She couldn't focus. Everything outside of Zootopia seemed so simple – so ignorant of what was going on and what was to come. She wanted to jump out of the truck and scream at the workers on the side of the highway to get as far away as possible.

“I think we'll need to find another way into the city,” Nick said.

“How are we going to do that? We already passed the last train stop before Zootopia and flying is out of the question.”

“The answer's right in front of you, Carrots,” Nick said, smiling. To their right, they saw a crane idling in the wind, the workers gathered around the base on break, seemingly guarding the entrance to a massive tunnel of some sort. 

“You can't be thinking-”

He cut her off, turning his gaze from the road and allowing a wide grin to creep across his face. “The MetroTrail expansion came to the suburbs, too, love. It'll take us anywhere we need to go – no cameras, no guards – nothing.”

“How are we going to get past the workers?” she asked. 

“Like this,” Nick said, jerking the steering wheel to the right. This stretch of highway didn't have sound barriers and happened to border what looked like a park with a running track. He drove the truck through the fence separating them from town and down across the field, gunning it down the gravel road toward the tunnel entrance. The tracks, still, stacked in a massive pile by the site gate, caught the chain link fencing as Nick plowed through another barrier. Workers got up from their break, scattering as he increased his speed, zooming past the crane and around a set of shipping containers, zooming into the tunnel and turning on his headlights. They were in. The sound of workers shouting at them echoed through the concrete tube. 

“Oh my God, Nick” Judy said, turning around a looking at the scene of chaos behind them. She could see a foreman waving his fist at their truck, rapidly decreasing in size as they got farther away.

“Sometimes you just have to bust in,” he said, looking over. “I thought you'd be more comfortable this way, considering you broke into that compound two years ago.”

“I did not break in,” she chided. She could see a smile creep across his face, silently giggling to himself. “I had probable cause.”

“And we have an excuse. It's as good enough as any. Besides, considering we're technically the bad guys now, I don't think a little breaking and entering will hurt our rap that much, no?” 

He turned back forward, his gaze shifting to the narrow corridor of light produced by the head lamps as they barreled through the tunnel. There were no rails, no wiring, and no lights save for the occasional blue lamp placed every mile showing the location of an emergency exit. They were speeding down through the darkness, heading in the only direction available with nothing to constrict their free movement. Judy counted the blue emergency lights every mile, calculating their distance and speed based on their spacing and timing. 

“We should be past the harbor by now. The tunnel's been curving slightly to the north and west ever since we passed the border into the city limits, so if memory serves me right,” she said, pointing to the right side of the windshield. Nick slowed the truck, pulling up to a fork in the tunnels. He took the right, picking up speed again as Judy went back to looking for blue lighting.

“Multiplication, huh?” Nick asked, jokingly. 

“We should be entering Savanna Square right about now. Only a few more miles to downtown, assuming this tunnel doesn't veer too far to the east or west.”

Nick grunted affirmatively. He trusted her judgment. What he didn't trust was the pristine state of these tunnels. For a project that was able to get concrete-to-tunnel wall in two and a half years, there should be some railway infrastructure present, especially given the presence of tracks outside of the entrance to the tunnel. Since they'd been driving, however, Nick hadn't seen a single track or utility line. It was as if the tunnels were being completed without transit in mind at all. As they drove further, the clean gray walls of the tunnel became pocked with graffiti and char – burns from garbage fires, Nick guessed. It wasn't all that long ago that he'd been burning garbage in an oil drum to stay warm. He knew the scorch marks and slag they made. He slowed down, predicting that they'd come across a group of homeless mammals sometime soon.

That sometime soon had come before he could even finish the though, however. He was forced to slam on the brakes as the tunnel began to curve, ever so slightly, revealing an encampment of animals under the city. Tents and oil drums littered the tunnel ahead of them, and several alligators and crocodiles looked up from their huddle to stare at the truck, themselves appearing haggard and tired. A mature bald eagle swept down from the ceiling, landing on the hood of their truck, peeing at them and spreading his wings simultaneously, as if to warn them.

“Who are you? You aren't from the House,” the eagle said. The reptiles had stepped away from the fire, surrounding their truck. Judy clung to him, her nose twitching in fear, staring around at the massive animals that huddled around them. Any of them could snap the duo without even thinking, and they didn't look friendly. Nick, for his part, decided that honesty was the best option. If animals like this were being persecuted by the city government, he didn't need to hold reservations about revealing their own predicament. There was, after all, honor among thieves.

“Just two wanted animals hiding from the SST – who're also trying to kill us, you guys?”

The bird stared at them intently, before putting his wings back by his side. The reptiles seemed to relax as well, disarming themselves. 

“Just some animals hiding from the SST – who're also trying to kill us. Name's Eddie. You two?” the eagle said. 

“I'm Nick and this is Judy,” Nick said, opening the door and getting out. Judy stayed put. 

“Sounding familiar,” one of the alligators said. “Are you of famous?”

“You could say that. Though I suppose we're more or less infamous, now. What's this about a house? You asked us if we were from there.”

“The Beacon House. It's a charity that helps animals like us out. Supposedly the mammals behind it were all in the business of keeping animals like us out of polite society. Now they're trying to atone. I don't care one way or the other, so long as my son gets to grow up in a Zootopia without this kind of madness,” the eagle said. He tilted his head to the side. Nick followed his gaze, looking over to see a small eaglet huddling behind the oil drum, hiding from them.

“He's still pretty scared of mammals. Ever since the boys from the ZPD threw us out of our home, he doesn't really trust them,” Eddie said. “What the hell brings you two down to these parts? You're not construction and thank God you're not SST – nowhere near dangerous enough to be either of those, I can tell.”

“We're trying to meet a friend and avoid getting caught. Figured these tunnels might be the best bet around the city.”

“Oh, they are, trust me,” Eddie said, crossing his wings in front of him and shaking his head. “This new tunnels network runs all along the city. Certain areas are closed off and patrolled heavily by the SST. I don't know why – every now and then we get a massive convoy of their trucks moving through here transporting something, but I don't know what. We end up hiding in emergency exits and alcoves when they do. There's more than ten trucks at a time when that happens, but Old Lionheart and Mr. Bos from the Beacon House only ever roll through here in a single car. Gives you an explanation of how we didn't scatter when we heard your single engine rolling through that tunnel.”

Nick could see Judy's ears perk up from inside the truck and she got out. Before she made it over to him, he scratched the back of his head and leaned toward the eagle, wanting to confirm what he just heard. “I'm sorry, could you repeat that for me. Who comes down here regularly to check up on you?”

“The two animals behind Beacon House – Mr. Bos and Old Lionheart.”

“He mayor not long ago – good animal. Friendly. Kind to us. Not made happy by new mayor,” one of the alligators said. “Bos too. Look funny. Funny horns. Brother not kind to us, so he sorry. Say he look after us. He come soon today, maybe three hours.”

Judy stood by Nick's side, staring at him as the alligator gave them the information. “So that's what they've been up to,” she said. “We need to talk to him and find out more.”

“If he was helping these animals while his brother was essentially stealing their money, he'd have to know why he was murdered – and more importantly, how it all fit into this plan,” Nick said. He turned his gaze from Judy to Eddie. “They come here every day?”

“Yeah, why? What's it to you?”

“We wanted to help. We've got some sins to atone for as well,” Judy said. It wasn't entirely false, but not entirely true, either. A lie-within-a-lie. “You wouldn't happen to know the nearest way out of here, would you? We're actually supposed to be meeting Mr. Bos shortly.”

Eddie used his wing to point down the tunnel in the direction they had been traveling. “The next exit isn't too far from here. Take it and you're right in the middle of downtown. Wish I'd known about this place when I used to work there, but things change. You can't keep that nice apartment forever, it seems,” he said, hanging his head. “I used to believe in it. The Zootopian Dream – to come to this city and make something of myself. Now I'm trying to make sure my son just treads water and doesn't drown.”

“Don't worry, sir,” Judy said, putting her arm around Nick and looking down the tunnel. “We'll restore it for you. For all of you.”

“Who are you?” Eddie asked as Nick already started making his way down the tunnel on foot, barely bothering to wait for Judy. He knew she would catch up.

“We're the police – and we'll make thing right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's recently come to my attention that apparently, birds and reptiles weren't intended to be sentient in the Zootopia universe according to the director, as well as cats and dogs not existing due to the lack of human domestication. On both accounts, let's just agree to roll with it and say this takes place in an AU where the two situations are reversed. The entire plot simply doesn't work without the first and, as for cats and dogs...I dunno, genetic engineering? Designer babies? It's a create-your-own-headcanon workaround. Let's call it the "Chapter 22 Fix".
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you for your continued readership and support.


	24. When You Walk Through the Garden

Chapter XXIII: When You Walk Through the Garden

Judy's declaration had taken the animals aback. To them, the ZPD represented the worst in the Animal Kingdom – greed, corruption, malice, and discrimination. For the past two years, they had watched their friends taken from their homes, their pleas against the banks that stole their money and conglomerates that laid them off from their jobs went unanswered. The whole of Zootopian society had exiled them and the ZPD, for its part, had barely noticed. Eddie unfurled his wings, sweeping in front of Judy, planting his face in front of hers and staring into her. Nothing could escape his vision, not even an animal's intentions.

“My ears tell me that you're an enemy, but your eyes tell me that you're a friend. How can this be possible? Why didn't you answer our prayers two years ago, when all of this first started? How can I trust you?” he asked. With each question, he brought his beak closer to her face. Judy could feel the hot breath coming out of his nostrils, inflamed by anger and fear.

“Sir, I can tell you that I had no idea about what was going on in the outer districts. Me and my partner were held up in central. Poster children for the police force while they kept us away from the real police work that would've helped you – all of you; but I swear,” she paused, turning away from Eddie, facing his son, still hiding behind the oil barrel. “I swear we'll do right by you. We'll stop what's coming and take down who did this to you.”

Eddie looked over to his son, who was taking a few steps away from the barrel and coming over to them. He stopped in front of Judy, outstretching his wings and placing them around Judy's leg. She felt his talons, still adolescent and not yet fully developed, dig into her skin. She held back the urge to wince and gave a smile instead, kneeling down and petting the young eaglet, ruffling his feathers. 

“I promise I'll keep you safe, okay buddy?” she said. Eddie's son merely nodded, backing away and looking at his father. Eddie shook his head, disengaging and stepping back.

“You know where to find Mr. Bos?” he asked.

“Yeah, Savanna Central Cafe. My partner and I are heading there now,” Judy said.

“Godspeed, officer,” Eddie said, saluting her. She tilted her head and he could see the confusion on her face. Laughing, he put down the salute and placed his wings behind his head, losing himself to a memory. “Once upon a time I was a major in the Avian Armed Forces. Old habits are hard to break.”

Judy hesitated for a moment before going to the position of attention and rendering a salute herself. Eddie returned it quickly before breaking it, both of them sharing a smile afterward.

“Go,” he said, motioning his wings toward the direction of the exit. Judy broke off into a sprint, running as fast as she could down the tunnel. She found the blue light indicating the emergency exit about five hundred meters away and found Nick lying down on the stairs, his legs crossed and his arms behind his head.

“Go away, Carrots, I was enjoying my 'me' time,” he said, jokingly. “We haven't really had any time to relax since this all started.”

“Nor should we. Come on, let's get to work,” she said, stepping over him. He grunted while getting up, following her to the steel crash door at the top of the stairs.

“Judy, you're killing me,” he said, coming up next to her and grabbing her paw. He felt her looking up at him, squeezing his paw as they placed their free paws on the handle together. “You ready to get back to the fight?”

“I already am,” she said. Counting down together, they opened the door and found themselves coming out of a small concrete bunker in a downtown park. Mammals drinking coffee and lost in their smart phones passed by them without paying them much notice. They let the door close behind them and scanned the area around them. Surrounded by massive skyscrapers, they found themselves in the downtown area.

“Oh, damn it,” Judy said, breaking her hold on Nick's paw and pacing around him.

“What is it?”

“I just remembered – neither of us has a phone and we don't have any idea where the Savanna Central Cafe is!” she said, placing her paws in the air before covering her face. She looked up at a clock in the center of the park: a quarter after noon and they had no idea where they were supposed to meet Mr. Bos.

When Judy looked over for Nick, she found that he had disappeared, gone from her line of sight. Turning around in every direction, she found him talking and laughing over my a group of young snow leopards sitting at a table – all females, by the sound of their giggles. Nick smiled, patting one of them on the back before turning around, walking back to Judy. She felt something in the pit of her stomach, a gnawing grumbling that didn't immediately dissipate when Nick came back over to her. She was jealous. Only slightly so, but the feeling was there. She smiled as best she could, deciding to take the emotion as her body telling her that she'd found the right partner, as a cop and a mate.

“Turns out we're not far – only a few blocks away,” he said. “If we run, we should be able to make it.”

Judy grunted, asking which way they should go. All Nick had to do was point and they were off, darting across the street and down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of pedestrians in their way. Running as fast as they could, they still had to stop for traffic, waiting at a busy intersection for the light to change. As they stood on the corner, they saw a tow truck drive past them hauling an old ZPD cruiser, escorted by another just like it, repainted in SST's black and red coloring. Its sigil, a circular field of five-pointed stars with stylized flame inside of it, was emblazoned loudly where the ZPD's motto of “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect” once stood. Nick made a sound of disgust, audible to almost everyone at the intersection, barely containing himself from throwing up an obscene gesture to go along with it. 

The light changed and they stood fast, staring down the SST cruiser and tow truck as they moved down the avenue. Judy could practically feel Nick's seething rage bubbling up, placing a paw on his shoulder and rubbing it. 

“Calm down, Nick, there's going to be time for that.”

“That time ain't coming soon enough, Carrots. Not soon enough,” he said. He placed his paws in his pockets and they walked with the rest of the crowd, ebbing through the artificial canyons at a leisurely pace. It wasn't long before they found the Savanna Central Cafe – a rustic, bohemian shoppe that stood at the base of a glass-clad tower. The contrast was striking, even more so than the bored throngs of selfie-taking animals inside, seeming to come for the spectacle of being there more than the experience itself. Inside, sitting at a booth, they could see two animals dressed in neatly tailored suits. One was Mayor Lionheart, facing the door, and the other, a yak, whose back was turned to them. Entering, they found their way over, standing to the side and looking down at the two of them as they finished their lunch. It was surprising how much Leonard Bos looked like his brother. The last time they had seen that face, it was covered in blood and the body was covered in stab wounds, tightly shut as if the killer had had their fun with him. Judy could see a little bit of that pain in Leonard's eyes as well.

“Well, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde – I haven't seen you two in quite a while,” Lionheart said, extending his paw. “What brings you two around here?”

“I'm surprised you're not more concerned about what two wanted criminals want coming up to you, Mr. Mayor,” Nick said. Lionheart, like most earnest politicians, was terrible at playing The Game – his own language and mannerisms betrayed him before he even got past the introduction. Nick sat down next to Lionheart, looking between him and Bos. Judy opted to stand. “I think we all know why both of us are here.”

"You want to know why the city's two most famous police officers became animalia non grata overnight, correct? Or why Chief Bogo was suddenly arrested and charged with corruption? Or, perhaps, even the truth behind the killing of my brother?” Bos said. Judy gulped, looking down at the yak wearing sunglasses and drinking tea. He looked up at her, and though she couldn't see his eyes, she felt them drilling into her forehead. “I have the answers to all these questions – pieces of the puzzle that will no doubt be supplemented by whatever facts you've gathered through your own investigation.”

“How did you know that we were investigating?” Nick asked. Bos's tone of voice told him that the yak wasn't as naive as Lionheart – the disclosure here wasn't an ill-timed slip of the lip. Mr. Bos wanted them to know that he was monitoring their investigation. But why? Why did everyone know so much but them?

“That will come in time, Mr. Wilde – come. Come with me and our former mayor here. I'll explain things in the car,” he said, pausing as he stood up. “And it will be much easier for you to accept what I have to offer if you witness it for yourself, rather than take my word for it.”

“And what, exactly, is that?” Nick said, leaning in. Nick could see himself in the reflection of Bos's sunglasses. Compared to the two well-groomed, suited animals sitting next to him, he looked haggard and distressed. He was tired of chasing after phantom clues and being chased for their consequences. 

Mr. Bos stood up and threw money on the table to cover their expenses, wordlessly walking toward the exit while Judy followed dutifully behind him. She tugged her head in that direction, suggesting that Nick follow behind them. Mayor Lionheart stood up and was the last to leave, having adjusted his suit at the table to look as prim and proper as ever. He couldn't afford not to maintain appearances.

The black luxury sedan was parked across the street. Mr. Bos opened the driver's door and Lionheart followed him on the passenger side, Nick and Judy taking the back. Once settled in, Mr. Bos adjusted his mirror to focus on the duo in the back, driving carefully and moving his eyes between them and the road. 

“You know, I think it's all for the best that my brother got murdered,” Mr. Bos said. Seeing the shock in Judy's face, he quickly clarified. “I still mourn for him, of course, but were it not for his temper and the terrible events that followed, I doubt you two would be here right now, and we need all the help we can get.”

“And why is that?” Judy asked. “What's going on that you need us so badly?”

“I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yourself, given how much time and resources have been devoted to finding you two. Look, see for yourself,” he said, pointing to a digital billboard near a bus stop as they reached a red light. Nick and Judy's official police portraits had been posted. Three weeks ago, their faces had been plastered all over the city with encouraging words to join the ZPD and how the police department protected its citizens. Now, the text overlaid with their images read “Wanted: any information leading to their arrests will lead to a cash reward, payable by the Zootopia Aerospace Corporation.”

“You two have fallen from grace so badly that some members of the Senate are wondering just what the hell is going on in this city. And I fear that they won't find out until it's too late,” Bos said, turning right and merging into a lane taking them towards the highway.

“What is going on, Mr. Bos. We can't help if you don't tell us,” Nick said, flatly. He was getting annoyed. Judy could feel his tail smack her as it waved impatiently. It was Lionheart who answered.

“A coup.”

“What?” Nick asked. He leaned forward, placing his head between the front seats. Lionheart drew a deep breath, looking wistfully out the window and placing his paws in his lap. 

“Every politician in the world wants a legacy, you know,” he began. “Something to leave behind – something to be remembered by. My father was mayor of this city for a long time. And his father before him. And my cousin in Bana City and my brother in the Foreign Ministry – I'm the first Lionheart to ever lose an election.” His face cast downward toward the floor of the car.

“Alright, how does that fit into the SST trying to kill us over the last week? No offense, Mr. Mayor, but I think we're on two totally different problems here,” Nick said.

“Nick!” Judy scolded, pulling him back from between their seats. Lionheart held up a paw to console her before continuing.

“I brought Dawn in on my team because I wanted to build a stronger coalition – I wanted to be inclusive. When it came time for me to retire, I wanted animals to think of me like they thought of my father. Every bridge and park and plaza in this city was built by him. They call it the Golden Age. Well, I wanted to bring about a social golden age, where all animals were welcomed. I wanted to turn Zootopia into a paradise for all. Not just for mammals – and certainly not just for prey,” he said. “But obviously, she had a different vision.”

“Which we stopped. She's behind bars in Royal Prison now,” Nick said.

“But her followers aren't,” Judy reminded him. “Her followers and advisers run the cabinet now.”

“Not her followers,” Mr. Bos spoke up. “At least, not entirely. I was a follower. Paul Moo and Cynthia Spots – they are followers. Laura Felis was her mentor.”

The revelation hit Nick and Judy hard. Judy, in particular, felt the scar on her leg from two years ago flare up and she reached down to rub it, ensuring there wasn't a gash. Nick clenched his teeth, reminded of the animal that tried to get him to kill Judy and all the evil she'd wrought upon the city. Just when it seemed they'd be rid of her, the root of her evil had come to haunt them. Typical, Nick thought.

“I don't understand,” Judy said. “How-”

“We all went to Meadowlands College together. Dawn was an incoming first-year at the time and Laura was an outgoing fourth-year who had this club – the Mammal Pride Committee, something like that – that spoke to the absolute worst in us. I don't even remember why I joined, probably because I had a crush at the time, but I remember coming out of it as a changed animal. Whenever Dawn argued about sheep-first policies back in the Meadowlands, it didn't matter that I was a yak, I had to support her out of solidarity. And when she came here and first ran for mayor in 2007, I jumped on the chance to manage her campaign.”

“And your brother?” Judy asked.

“My brother bought into Felis's shtick right up until the end. Well, almost, anyway. He was having incredible moral issues with what he was doing. I tried to recruit him into Beacon House time and time again – I was this close,” he said, holding up a free hoof and closing his digits to within an inch of each other before continuing, “to getting him to quit Goldman Yaks and come join me. That close to saving his life. Unfortunately, someone must have caught wind of his misgivings and tried to publicly 'sway' him-”

Judy interrupted him. “The Central Station Incident!”

“Yes. That was when you two got involved. Shortly after that, I lost contact with him, and before I could find him, you two did – dead, in that parking lot in Tundra Town.”

“So your brother started to have misgivings about what he was doing. What was his role, exactly?” Judy asked. She wished she still had her carrot pen and notebook on her.

“Ostensibly he was a non-traditional animal investment specialist at Goldman Yaks. In reality, his real specialty was finding banks and lenders that catered to non-mammals and leveraging his bank's massive cash reserves to buy out the bank and shutter their accounts. It was a very effective – and very legal – way to seize money from non-mammals and prevent them from doing everything from owning savings to getting credit.”

“I see,” Judy said. “So that's why the All Mammal Credit Union was targeted.”

“The manager wouldn't give into the bank's demands and they sent Duke to teach them a lesson,” Nick offered. “And when your brother wouldn't do that anymore, the bank tried to persuade him otherwise.”

“And when he didn't budge, someone ended up killing him,” Judy said.

“I can see why the SST wants you two gone,” Bos said, smiling.

“We were removed from the force after that,” Nick said. He could feel Judy tense up beside him, taking his paw in hers for comfort. It was still a raw memory for her.

“Not just you,” Lionheart said. “The ZPD's been gutted. The only station that escaped the massive cuts was the Fifth Precinct.”

“The one that's been taking action against the reptiles and birds in the Canal District,” Nick said.

“Chief Bogo never would have allowed that. Even if most of the current council was elected on a party wave with Felis, he's still a force to reckon with in this city. They never would have gone through with a plan to dismantle the ZPD if he had any sort of say in the conversation.”

“So he had to be removed,” Nick said. “And he never would have taken that lying down, either, which is why they needed his family.”

“Family?” Bos asked. “Now there's a piece of information we didn't have before. I think this will be a very good relationship, Mr. Wilde. We've both been chasing after bits of pieces of the truth, not really understanding the full picture. With our forces combined, we should be able to prevent Felis and her comrades from whatever it is they're planning.”

“Getting her to become prime minister?” Judy asked.

“I don't see how that's possible right now. She's not very popular outside of Zootopia and the Meadowlands. Unless something changes drastically and very quickly,” Lionheart said. “I have a feel for these things – Felis won't win. She can't. Unless something changes the nature of the election.”

“Something like a terrorist attack?” Nick asked. He turned to Judy and squeezed her paw. She wasn't the only one who needed comfort.

“That would change the nature of the election. It might even change the direction of the country, if it were large enough,” Lionheart said. He paused, turning around in his seat to face them. “You two-”

Judy interrupted him and took the data chip from her phone out of her pocket. “Bills of lading for thousands of kilograms of explosives – and photographs of all their locations. They're working with Ricky Mouse to bring them into the city.”

“Ricky Mouse,” Bos said. “There's a name that will add weight to what you two are about to see.” 

They had been driving on the outbound highway out of Zootopia and were only now taking an exit, having left the city after going through a tunnel through the harbor district. They were back on the side of the harbor they'd just left hours before. Driving down small, suburban roads, Mr. Bos led their car down a winding pass through a cropping of trees before driving through a cast-iron gate at the entrance of a cemetery. He continued as the asphalt turned to cobblestone, parking his car among a cropping of mausoleums and faded grave markers. He got out of the car and motioned for the others to join him.

When they exited, they found that the cemetery was deserted. The solitude and silence that surrounded them didn't provide them with ease, but only intensified Judy's anxiety as Mr. Bos led them down rows of gravestones toward a singular plot underneath a tree. He called over to them. This was the spot.

“This is what I wanted to show you. It's the heart of what's at stake here – it probably kicked off everything that we're fighting now, and what convinced me to abandon Felis and Bellweather's hateful ideals. She isn't as bent on power as the rest of you imagine. This is revenge,” he said, sweeping his arm across the plot toward the two gravestones sitting there. The text was fading with time, but they were still recent enough to make out clearly. Judy clung to Nick as they read the names aloud. Now, the situation came into focus for the first time since it began.

“WILLIAM J. FELIS, DECEMBER 1, 1952 – MAY 19, 1988”

“LAURA B. FELIS, MAY 19, 1955 – MAY 19, 1988”

There was a single, common epitaph on the two gravestones beneath the names: “May Heaven strike down the wicked who do harm upon the righteous.”

Judy held her breath as Bos reached into his coat pocket to take out a pack of cigarettes. Nick took one as well, and for the first time in her life, so did Judy. As Bos lit them, he looked over, taking a deep drag.

“Now that you know the truth, has it set you free? Her plan has been thirty years in the making – everything is teetering on the brink. And you two are the only animals who can stop it.”

“Right”, Judy said, taking a drag. The taste and smell offended her and she had to suppress a gag, but as the nicotine rushed through her skull, it was strangely calming. “No pressure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been quite a while since I've been able to keep my "3-4 days in between chapters" posting schedule. It won't hold. This was a fluke born out of me passing out after class and waking up at midnight with a small amount of homework and writing to do. I really like this chapter - I've been looking forward to this reveal for a while now, and I'm looking forward to getting into the backstory next chapter, although some of the more attentive readers will probably have connected the dots and deduced the backstory already.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. As always, thank you for your support and for reading.


	25. Keep Close to the Law

**Chapter XXIV: Keep Close to the Law**

 

Mr. Bos turned away and looked across the hill, toward the bay – the tips of Zootopia's skyscrapers were lost in the clouds. A storm was rolling in. He took a drag of his cigarette and sighed. Judy felt Nick's arm come around her shoulder, pulling her into him. Lionheart's dominating presence was the only thing keeping the silence together. He folded his arms, waiting for the yak to speak. With another drag, he broke the uneasy quiet that had surrounded them, ready to induct them into the fellowship of those who knew the bastard truth behind the events of the last two years.

 

“If you were looking from the outside in, all of this might seem like random happenstance. Indeed, for a long time, when I was working with Spots for Bellweather, it seemed like we were being guided by some higher force for a purpose I barely understood. Without context, Felis's ambitions are shrouded in mystery. When I pieced together the truth, I couldn't stay bound to them any longer.”

 

Lionheart walked over to his friend, putting a paw on his shoulder. Their backs were turned to Nick and Judy, but they saw him whisper something in the yak's ear. At once, the two larger animals turned to face the officers. Lionheart continued where Bos had left off.

 

“After I was defeated in the election, Leonard over here contacted me to see if I wanted to work for the Beacon House as a 'consultant'. Little did I realize he wanted me to brief him on everything I'd known from my time as mayor. I told him what I could about Bellweather and he told me what he could about Felis, and before long we put two and two together and began to dig into what she was up to. Just like you, we knew about the relationships and we knew who did what – but it wasn't until we found out the heart of what was going on that we decided to team up to take her down.”

 

“And what, exactly, is going on?” Judy asked, crossing her arms. “Who are the animals buried here?”

 

“Laura Felis's parents,” Mr. Bos said. “Murdered in cold blood. Kidnapped from their hotel room in the middle of the night and sold off to a group of alligators from the Reptilian Dominion who were here for murder tourism. They'd never tasted mammal meat before, and so they came to Zootopia, like so many other animals, to make their dreams come true.”

 

“I remember that case,” Nick said, scratching the back of his head, thinking back. “I was only four at the time, but I remember my mom picking me up early from school and not letting me leave the apartment for weeks afterward. The whole city was in a panic.”

 

“Not just the city, Mr. Wilde,” Lionheart said. “My father was fielding questions from the Senate about the case. The entire country was in an uproar.”

 

“The Senate? The country? Why?” Judy asked, placing a paw on her chin. “How could one case set the entire country on fire?”

 

“I think the date on those headstones should give it away,” Lionheart said. “At least if you paid attention in history class, Ms. Hopps.”

 

“1988? The collapse of the Chordate Union?”

 

“Right you are,” Bos said. The inflection in his voice turning tuning higher as he raised his hooves in the air. “The root of Felis's rise to power came from the Chordate Federal Law Review of 1988. When the Reptilian Dominion broke away, the borders between it and the Animal Kingdom went in absolute disarray. Powerful reptiles were able to illegally enter the country – most came to escape the harm being done to them in their own country, but a few came to do harm to our own. The alligators who came here for the purpose of eating mammals weren't exactly model citizens back home. They came here with anger and money, and teamed up with the criminal bosses from back then to kidnap and eat Zootopian citizens.”

 

“So is Mr. Big involved in this?” Judy asked.

 

“Mr. Big? No,” Bos replied. “He was disgusted at the suggestion – he told a senator to go fuck himself when he asked that. No, the established crime families in Zootopia didn't want anything to do with them. It was the up-and-comers – the young bloods – that dealt with the reptiles. And in the Felis's case, it was Rickey Mouse.”

 

“Rickey Mouse?” Judy and Nick asked simultaneously. Their mouths hanged agape, looking at each other.

 

“But Felis is working with Mouse,” Judy said, motioning with her paws. “Why would she work with the animal she knows played a role in her parents death.”

 

“That's the long-con,” Bos said. “Mouse has no idea she was their daughter. To him, the Felis's were just another couple who got too wasted on their special night out for anyone to notice them disappearing. Just victims in the crowd. And thanks to special legal maneuvering on Mouse's behalf and the fact that the alligators involved were newly-minted members of the brand new Reptilian Parliament, no one was convicted for her parents' deaths.”

 

“And since then, Felis has been promoting an ideology of mammal supremacy. She's been recruiting others to gain her more and more power, all the while getting closer to the animals responsible for her parents' deaths.” Nick said, pointedly. “I suppose your mom getting eaten on her birthday would do that for you.”

 

“Every moment of her life has been building up to this point,” Judy said. “is that why she wants to become prime minister?”

 

“The only animals who know her reasons for seeking out that office are our enemies,” Bos said. “But thankfully, with you two on our side and with the data chip that you just gave us, we might be able to stop her before it's too late.”

 

“Indeed. I've seen the harm she's done to the Canal District,” Lionheart said, shaking his head. “Once you've seen the heartache of families torn away from each other – thrown out of their homes and their savings stolen from them – and then you think that this is only the opening act-” The former mayor paused, turning around again to look at the city he used to rule. “I don't want to see what Zootopia might look like when her anger overtakes the entire country.”

 

“I don't think anyone does,” Bos said, putting his hoof on Lionheart's shoulder and nodding at his friend. “And I think it's time we introduced these two to the rest of our team. Shall we?”

 

Bos nudged Lionheart back toward the direction of the car and motioned for Nick and Judy to follow them. They looked at each other, confused, but followed anyway. A light mist enveloped them and by the time they reached the car, a steady stream of rain was pouring over their heads. Nick and Judy rushed inside. Lionheart leaned back, handing Judy a handkerchief and shrugging at Nick. Bos already had the car on and tuned the radio to ZBC, allowing the announcer to fill the vacuum as he pulled out back onto the main road.

 

“Right now we've got a storm front coming across Zootopia from the Meadowlands heading fast, which should disappear over the bay by midnight. Weather for the rest of the week will be sunny with ambient temperatures allowing for unimpeded operation of the city's climate systems. Now to news: Mayor Felis announcing today her decision to seek the office of prime minister, having won the endorsement of at least one major party, she joins longtime senator Birdie Sanders in the contest to replace outgoing Prime Minister Richard Lionheart.”

 

Judy and Nick looked over to the mayor sitting in the front passenger seat. Seeing them eye him from the mirror, he waved a paw at them. “No relation,” he said.

 

“A representative from the Special Security Team announced that Zootopia is on 'high alert' after reviewing surveillance footage that showed that wanted fugitives Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps were back in the city. They're being sought for breaking and entering in the former ZPD headquarters building and for the death of a fox in a village named 'Bunnyburrow'. Special security measures are being taken around all major transit centers, so expect heavy delays.” The announcer said. To every other animal in the car, she knew, his voice was calm and steady – he was a reliable conduit for whatever was being fed to him. To Judy's heightened sense of hearing, she could tell, even over the radio, that his voice broke just a little when he read their names. Not everyone in Zootopia thought they were criminals, it seemed.

 

“So should we be worried about that little bit of information? I'm used to hiding in a trunk to get away from the cops, you know,” Nick said. “It's not skin off my back – Judy here might get a little razzled, but what's the fun in life if you can't suck in your gut and hide in an oil barrel for once?”

 

Judy slapped him across the arm and he smiled while Mr. Bos looked at them through the mirror. He was an attentive driver, always shifting his eyes between them and the road, not taking his eyes off of where he was going for more than a second. Judy appreciated it as a gesture of good instinct. Nick knew it was to avoid getting ambushed by animals who wanted them killed.

 

“Don't you worry about that. So long as you don't go sticking your heads out the window, the traffic cameras shouldn't be able to track you – they're meant to focus on drivers and license plates, not back-seat passengers.”

 

“Unless Paul updated their software,” Lionheart quipped, raising his paw. “But then again, I suppose we'll know pretty soon, shouldn't we?”

 

As they passed through the tunnel crossing the bay, the car was flooded with orange light – the dim helium lamps buzzing loudly away as they drove through. The soft glow accompanied the hiss of the radio as they lost signal quite well and it almost put Judy to sleep, had Mr. Bos not turned the dial down to shut it off.

 

“I don't want you falling asleep on me, now,” he said, calling her out. “It's too important for you two to meet these animals. Or reunite with them, I guess is the more appropriate word.”

 

“Who are we meeting and where are we going?” Nick asked, tilting his head to the side.

 

“That, Mr. Wilde, is a surprise,” Lionheart said. Nick could see him smiling from the mirror. Bastard.

 

“Last time I was surprised, a rhino almost stomped by head into the pavement,” Nick said, crossing his arms. “I have to say it ruined my appetite for them.”

 

“Relax, Mr. Wilde, relax.

 

As they neared the end of the tunnel, seeing the dark, dismal rain heaving down ahead of them, traffic slowed to a grinding crawl. It took several minutes for Nick and Judy to see why – red and yellow lights flashed ahead of them as an SST vehicle, a repainted ZPD patrol car, stood at the exit portal. Nick could just barely make out the ID number of the vehicle: 07-11.

 

“Son of a bitch,” Nick muttered under his breath. “They stole my ride.”

 

“Mr. Bos. Mr. Mayor,” Judy said, looking between the two animals sitting up front, her voice betraying anxiety. Nick could see her nose twitching as they continued to pull up to the exit.

 

“Don't worry, Ms. Hopps – this is all part of the plan,” Mr. Bos said. Lionheart was grinning as well, taking out his phone and tapping out a few quick texts. For a pair that seemed to be actively resisting the SST, they didn't seem concerned at all.

 

“You two-” Nick said, gritting his teeth. Had they been sold out? This entire adventure out into the boondocks a facade to get them into a trap? He felt like jumping up and tearing at both of their necks. Judy reached out for his paw and gripped it as they inched toward the checkpoint. An eternity seemed to pass between the car in front of them getting waived through and pulling up. Two guards armed with assault rifles greeted them at the exit, clad in their distinctive black combat armor. These two guards in particular wore helmets with shaded visors that covered their faces. All the better, Nick supposed. If he made it out of this alive, he'd have to hunt them down.

 

Mr. Bos put the car in park when the soldiers held up their paws to halt them. Inspecting the car, they looked inside the windows, walking down to the rear. The two soldiers looked at Nick and Judy, holding their glance for several moments. They stared back, partly out of fear but mostly out of rage and confusion. Nick couldn't afford not to look them in the eye. After a full minute of intense glaring and near-snarling on Nick's part, the soldiers waived the car through the checkpoint, motioning for soldiers from another patrol car to take their place at the checkpoint. Nick noticed that Mr. Bos was driving slower than the flow of traffic, almost as if he was waiting for something. He turned around in his seat and saw the two soldiers getting back into car 07-11, turning off their lights and driving onto the main road. They were following.

 

“What the hell is that all about, Bos. Mr Mayor!” Nick shouted. Judy winced from the volume, drawing herself away from Nick, allowing her ears to droop down behind her head. She eagerly allowed herself to fill with ease, but quickly regained her composure to follow Nick's raging gaze between himself and the two animals up front. “We're wanted dead or alive by these animals and you lead us right to them? What's wrong with you!”

 

“You seem to have forgotten that we just got waived through,” Mr. Bos said, visibly amused.

 

“And now they're following us!” Nick shouted.

 

“Once again, not a problem.”

 

“The hell it isn't!” he shouted, slamming his fist against the window. It cracked from the force and Nick brought his paw back in pain, biting down on it to soothe himself. Mr. Bos turned off from the main avenue down a side street. Turning around, Judy could still see the SST car following them, the two soldiers in front never taking their gaze away from the car they were in.

 

“Just who are they, Mr. Bos?” Judy asked gently, trying to bring the situation in the car under control.

 

“You'll find out in about three minutes, Ms. Hopps – we're almost there,” he said, singing to himself. He pulled into a parking garage, taking the car up the ramps to the third floor and bringing them to a stop by an unmarked, white van easily three times the size of their car, meant for larger mammals. “I think it's time you met the rest of our team, although you should know them already.”

 

Both he and Mayor Lionheart got out of the car at the same time, leaving Nick and Judy to decide whether or not to follow them. The SST car pulling up behind them and boxing Bos's car in didn't give them much of a choice. The two soldiers exited car 07-11 and leaned against it, staring at them. Mr. Bos and Lionheart stood by the van, their paws waiting on the handles to the back doors. Nick looked over at Judy, his eyes silently negotiating with hers.

 

“You think this is a trap?” he asked her.

 

“If it was a trap, don't you think they would have arrested us – or worse – back at that checkpoint?”

 

“With dozens of witnesses around? Come on, Carrots, this is the perfect place for them to get the drop on us.”

 

“I don't think so,” she said, putting her paw on her chin. “Remember two years ago? When Bellweather called the ZPD over to witness you 'killing' me? This isn't their M.O. This isn't how Bellweather and Felis operate. When they move, they want the whole world to know about it – that's why Bellweather called the police to see you go savage. That's why Felis makes so many announcements on national TV. That's why they made a spectacle out of arresting the chief. They want to broadcast their power and let everyone know who they are and that they've won. If they're going to arrest us, they would've done it with as many witnesses as possible.”

 

She paused for only a second, glancing at Nick to see if he had anything. When he allowed her to continue, she shrugged, looking over at Bos and Lionheart by the van. “Besides,” she said. “They already have our evidence. What's the worst that could happen?”

 

With that, she opened her door and hopped out of the car, barely escaping Nick's fumbled attempt to reach out and grab her before she did so, leaving him alone in the car. He rolled his eyes when she happily joined Bos and Lionheart by the van, waving over for him to join her. He looked between her and the SST soldiers leaning against his old patrol car, cursing himself.

 

“Damn it. Silly rabbit,” he said, opening his door and walking uneasily over to them. The two SST soldiers stared at him the entire time he was walking, moving their heads to track his every movement. He had hated them already – now he hated them even more. He put his paws in his pockets, disarming himself and giving no pretense to everyone present that, if Judy trusted what was going on, so would he. It was a thoroughly unconvincing lie, and a big one at that, but Nick figured if he had to lie to himself in these circumstances, it would be one so large that even he would find it fanciful. Might as well keep things lighthearted.

 

When Judy saw him simply sigh and nod his head, she looked over to Bos and Lionheart, giving the okay. They opened the doors to the van in tandem. Nick's jaw dropped instantly and his eyes raced around, scanning the inside. Seeing his expression, Judy rushed over to him, herself having the same reaction. Inside were over half a dozen mammals, each sporting a grin as large and stupid as Lionheart's. Bos took a picture of them on his phone, promising to memorialize the moment.

 

“Hey ya, Jude! Oh, Nick – hon, you look awful!” Clawhauser burst, waving at them. Not just Clawhauser. Francine, McHorn, Wolford, Fangmeyer, Bane, Grizzoli, Delgato, and Trumpet were all there as well, all of them dressed in freshly-pressed dress blues. Each of them held up a paw or a hoof, getting out of the van one-by-one and hugging the duo as they passed by. Neither Judy or Nick had the energy to return the greeting, simply looking between each other and their colleagues from headquarters. Judy was the first to speak up, looking directly at Clawhauser.

 

“How? Why are you all here? Who – what's going on?” she stammered, dropping her arms to her side. Unable to keep her mouth closed or her face composed, she looked as she sounded, entirely confused.

 

“Oh, honey,” Clawhauser began. “None of us could stomach what happened to the chief. We all resigned as soon as they announced the charges.”

 

“And you're all here because?” Nick asked, slowly regaining himself.

 

Fangmeyer spoke up next, laying a paw on Nick's shoulder and looking down at him. The height difference, Nick realized, seemed even larger today. Perhaps it was because he felt so small.

 

“Lionheart over here reached out to as many officers as he could. Between what happened to the chief and you two, the choice was obvious. We wouldn't abandon the chief – and we won't abandon you,” he said. Nick still looked confused, so Wolford answered the question directly, skipping any pretense of feel-good emotion and sticking right to the punch line, never breaking his smile once.

 

“Lionheart recalled us all at once to make sure we were here to greet you back into the land of the living. Figured it would be a hell of a prank.”

 

“You absolute bastards,” Nick said, punching Wolford in the side. “This was your idea?” he asked, looking to Lionheart. The lion nodded, crossing his arms.

 

“I told you you knew them already. They're our front line soldiers in the fight against Felis.”

 

“I wouldn't have it any other way,” Judy said, now fully composed. She walked up to each one of her friends and gave them a hug, though not able to reach her arms fully around the larger animals. She giggled all the same, saving Clawhauser for last as the rotund cheetah lifted her off the ground, bear-hugging her. It had been too long.

 

Nick witnessed this and was tempted to join in before he caught a glimpse of the two SST soldiers walking over toward them, standing behind the group of officers and looking on. Nick couldn't tell what they were feeling in that moment, seeing only his reflection in their visors. He took a step back, his ears laying down flat against his head and his tail straightening out. He began to growl.

 

“And who the hell are these two!” he shouted, breaking the atmosphere and pointing at the soldiers. Lionheart sighed, looking over toward the soldiers and motioning a paw toward his head.

 

They reached up, detaching the clasps that held their helmets in place, allowing air to hiss from the broken seals. The pair took them off and placed their helmets under their arms. Nick froze in place, still pointing at them, although his tail relaxed and his ears went back to normal. He stood like this for a few moments, unable to comprehend what was going on, studying the two in detail.

 

“It's you!” he said, finally allowing his arm to go limp. Lionheart sighed, closing to the doors to the van.

 

“I told you you knew them.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone loves exposition characters! Yeah!
> 
> So I think I'm finally going to cave and revise this story from 'M' to 'T', both to reach a larger audience and to allow me to submit this fic to more sites. I'll have to revise the ending slightly, but not by much. The content of the story won't be changed, nor will the tone, but the severity will be turned down. Considering the "clean lemon" chapter earlier on, you might be wondering why this story was rated 'M' to begin with. It was rated 'M' specifically for one scene that I'd planned very near to the end that would've required an advanced warning on its own. Once we reach that point in the story, I'll delve into more details about what was "supposed" to happen, but for right now, even going over it in minor detail will be a major spoiler for what I have planned.
> 
> Anyway, new chapter after only a few days! Wow, that's new. That's what getting burned out from studying Arabic for 12 hours over the last few days does to you. I decided today that I needed a break because I wasn't retaining anything more and I needed to unwind before the Unit 3 test tomorrow, so, as a result, you're all benefiting. Also, Memorial Day weekend is coming up and I have a 24-hour shift on that Monday, so who knows - I might even be putting out 2-3 chapters that day. 
> 
> Moving on, this isn't a blog. Just wanted to give you all a heads up on changes to the structure of the story and the release schedule for the next week or so. As always, I hope you enjoy reading. Thank you for following.


	26. Beyond the Boundary

Chapter XXV: Beyond the Boundary

Officers Pardus and Onca stood silent, smiling as Nick ripped into them. The entire affair was a spectacle, with most of the officers present grinning madly at the sight of Nick losing his cool. For once, he'd let them know that they got to him. 

“You two,” he began, holding up his paws as if to strangle the two big cats. “You two are complete, utterly terrible animals. What's with those suits!” 

Pardus and Onca didn't answer, resorting to bringing their arms around the others' shoulders and grinning at Nick, still incredulous. Bos walked up in between them and Nick, holding out his hoof to explain the situation. 

“You see, Nick,” he said. “we needed eyes and ears on the inside. As your section's newest officers, these two raised the least suspicion for taking a contract with the SST when the plan to replace the police was raised. They received their commission that morning.”

“The greedy mooks didn't even bat an eye when we said we'd stay on. They were ecstatic to have the support of former cops,” Onca said, his black fur blending in perfectly with the combat armor. “I bet they figured they'd have an easier time winning hearts and minds if they had familiar faces patrolling the neighborhoods.”

“So,” Judy jumped in, “you two rookies got yourselves in deep, huh?”

“Yeah,” Onca said. Unlike his partner, his spotted, yellow-orange fur stood in stark contrast to the armor he wore. It was almost an eyesore. “And with surprisingly little effort, too. Something big is coming down – the Zootopia Aerospace CEO came by the station the day after Chief got taken away to tell us that all hands were on deck. Said that the company needed as many cops they could take into their ranks to help 'pacify' the city.”

“Zootopia is pretty large,” Judy reminded them. “Even the ZPD had almost 60,000 officers.”

“No,” Onca said, shaking his head. “Their figures were way higher than that. He talked about over one hundred thousand.”

“One hundred thousand?” Nick asked, stroking his chin. “That's not policing. That's an occupation.”

“Problem is, what for?” Judy asked, joining Nick in his pose. They stared at the concrete floor while Lionheart reached into his coat pocket, pulling out the data chip Judy had given him earlier.

“Lucky for us, we might just have the answer,” he said, taking a step forward and handing the chip over to Pardus. “Let's see what they see, shall we?”

Pardus nodded, walking over to his patrol car. He put the chip into a card reader before inserting it into the laptop straddling the center console, booting up the system and navigating Judy's files. He made a few noises as he searched, eliciting curious glances from the other animals gathered around the van. He motioned for them to come over after a few moments of cursory investigation.

“Guys, you may want to see this,” he said, holding a paw out for someone – anyone to take it. Bos obliged and Pardus brought him close, the yak's head hanging over his shoulder just inside the car as he explained the situation. “Alright, so according to this picture,” he said, bringing up the picture Judy had taken in Warrens-Den, “these spots on circled and dated on the map, right? Well, look at this.”

Pardus brought up Ax and Hammer, the SST's proprietary personnel management program, and loaded a map of Zootopia. Clicking around the user interface, he brought up an image with several areas of Zootopia highlighted. Mr. Bos tilted his head in confusion.

“Just what am I looking at here?” he asked.

“This is a map of permanent garrison stations for SST guards. It matches perfectly with the image that Judy took. Hey, Judes, what was that anyway?” the leopard asked.

Judy took a deep breathe, struggling to find the wherewithal to break the news so nonchalantly. “That,” she began, “was a map of sites where the Zootopia Transit Administration has been smuggling and storing explosives.”

“You mean for digging the tunnels?” he asked, confused. “I don't understand, why would they need permanent guards for that?”

“Not for the tunnels,” Nick said. “Judy showed me the cargo manifest on one of these shipments. It should be in her files.”

Pardus went back to the image window, clicking around until he found the bill of lading for the ammonium nitrate. It looked alien to him – totally incomprehensible. “I don't understand,” he said. “What's so significant?”

“Each shipment contains a thousand kilograms of ammonium nitrate,” Nick said. “It's enough firepower to blow up a city block. And there's tens of thousands of pounds of the stuff inside the city right now.”

“That's not all,” Judy said, interrupting Nick. “Check out where it's all parked. Every single depot in along a border wall. And not just the walls themselves – they're all up against a climate control node.”

An gasp filled the air as the other officers behind them began piecing things together for themselves. Most of her colleagues were old time bruisers, more comfortable working in Tundra Town SWAT than the detective-type policing – and paperwork – that attached itself to big breaks like this, but even they began to understand the severity of the situation.

“Zootopia depends on those nodes,” Grizzoli said. Lionheart agreed.

“Not just Zootopia. There are fifty million animals in the Zootopia metro area – in The Burrows and across the bay – start messing with the climate control systems and you'd have an environmental disaster beyond imagining,” the former mayor said.

“And if they go down totally?”

“This entire region would be uninhabitable until you got them running again. It would be one thing to take them offline for regular maintenance – we do that all the time every time there's a severe thunderstorm rolling over the city, but causing damage to them and the climate border walls? I don't know. None of us have lived in a Zootopia without them,” Lionheart said. He ran a paw through his mane, concern showing across his face. 

“I don't suppose Felis was kind enough to dump a schedule for when this is all set to take place on your lap, would she?” Pardus asked over his shoulder. Judy shook her head in the negative and the leopard sighed. Bos removed himself from the car, standing up tall in front of everyone and crossed his arms. 

“Right, then,” he said. “I suppose we have no other choice.”

“It's still too dangerous, Leonard,” Lionheart said. “We still haven't located the chief yet.”

“Nor will we, until we get inside, Leodore,” Bos said, pausing. He looked directly at Nick and Judy before continuing. “We needed someone inside the SST to eavesdrop on their movements and access their systems, but what we have is limited, at best. The best, most reliable way for us to find Chief Bogo and stop all of this from going down is to head to the source.”

“And that would be?” Nick asked.

“The Zootopia Center for Information Security,” Bos said. “You remember it – it used to be a ZPD system before being contracted out several years ago after Felis won the election. At the time, we all thought it was just a cost-saving measure, but ever since the ZPD was replaced, we've noticed something else, too. All the orders coming to these guys,” he said, pointing over his shoulder to Pardus and Onca. “Are coming from the CIS. It's acting as a central relay to every SST soldier in the city. And from its old mission as a data analytics unit for the ZPD, I think it might be able to coordinate mass surveillance across Zootopia, as well.”

Judy and Nick looked at each other at the last part, recalling how often they were tracked through the city's traffic cameras. The modified hardware came from Mouse and his workers, they knew, but the software had to come from somewhere, too. It didn't surprise them that it would come from the CIS.

“So, what's the plan?” Judy asked. 

“Take it, get all the information we need from it, and shut it down,” Bos said.

“Which sounds a lot easier than it is,” Lionheart said, holding a paw out to raise a point. “The place is a fortress. Not only is it located right in civic plaza, but it's also the home of ZPD SWAT's old armory – every animal in the place is going to be heavily armed and dangerous. I don't know how we'd even try.”

“I might,” Nick said, putting his paws in his pockets and looking off into the distance. “Breaking and entering is my thing, remember? I can guarantee there's a way into that place, especially since it's in civic plaza. Come on, I'll show you.”

Nick began walking over to Bos's car while the other animals gathered there looked at Judy, who only offered a shrug in response. Just what was Nick planning, she wondered. The other animals got back into the van, with Pardus and Onca following close behind in their patrol car. Bos and Lionheart buckled themselves in as Judy found herself back beside Nick, his face lost in thought. 

“At least, I think it should work,” he said.

“Just what do you have planned, Mr. Wilde?” Lionheart asked as they pulled out of the parking garage, heading out into the streets. They took the lead, with the SST patrol car in the middle and the van bringing up the rear of their little convoy. If anything went south in either vehicle, at least Pardus and Onca could bring their arms to bear in either direction quickly. 

“Let's just say that it's a good thing we've got some big mammals on our side with this one, since I sure as hell won't be able to do this. Do you know where the Grand Hotel is?”

“The derelict?” Bos asked, incredulously. “What could possibly be over there?”

“Just head there,” Nick insisted. Bos obliged, turning down a side street, weaving through the crowded, diagonal avenues that criss-crossed the downtown street grid. They parked outside of a small, community drug store across from the hotel and got out of their vehicles, staring up at the empty monolith in front of them.

The hotel's glory days were long gone. Large wood letters spelled out the word “GRAND” immediately above the boarded up entrance, and the windows of the first three floors were similarly boarded up. The white paint on the sign was faded and chipped. Graffiti graced the upper floors of the otherwise regal monument. Where the windows had been, they could see inside the structure, where decay and time had taken their toll – the ceilings of several rooms had collapsed in on themselves. Through the light mist of rain, they could faintly see water dripping down through the structure, indicating that, at least in one section, the entire roof had given way. Nick hadn't bothered explaining why they were there, instead opting to walk across the street toward the empty, overgrown grass lot next to the hotel, kneeling down to get beneath a small hole in the chain link fence. 

Judy looked at the others before following, offering an example of trust for the rest to follow. It was one thing for Judy to follow him, barely having to kneel to get beneath the hole in the fence. Nor for the more nimble animals like Fangmeyer to fit through the fence. It was another matter entirely for Francine and Clawhauser to fit through. Luckily, Pardus and Onca had had the foresight to bring a pair of bolt-cutters from their patrol car – standard issue for the ZPD and SST alike, and cut a larger hole in the fence. More conspicuous, yes, but hiding in plain sight had become Nick and Judy's specialty of late and they needed to get into the building. 

After they had all gone through, Nick walked over to the side of the building, patting down each of the boards before finding a loose one and tearing it off of the windowsill. He climbed into the building, helping others follow.

As they stood in the grand lobby, looking up toward the broken skylight above leaking water into the building, Bos and Lionheart took stock of the fox, confidence exuding from him as if he were taking a stroll through an old childhood home. Bos was forced to speak up.

“You still haven't told us what we're doing in this,” he said, looking around, “hulk of a building.”

“Mr. Mayor, when was the first Zootopia subway built?” Nick asked, ignoring Bos entirely and walking over to the central staircase. The stairs on the outer rim led upstairs to a second lobby, while the central stairs led down, further into the structure.

“At the end of the 19th century, why?”

“And is that system in use today?” Nick asked again.

“No, it was pretty much all abandoned after the redevelopment of the system in the 1950s.”

“Right,” Nick said, motioning for the group to center around him. “But in the interim, the old subway system connected most of the old neighborhoods in Zootopia, and the downtown area was the most developed. You'd have subway stops for individual buildings, even – the ones where bankers and socialites would gather and couldn't be bothered to walk a couple blocks to after getting off the subway.”

“Is this-” Bos said, being cut off by Nick.

“The answer is yes, but we'll need Francine and Lionheart and Grizzoli over there to help us get in there.”

Nick descended the stairs, bringing them to a regal waiting area still filled with wooden benches and holding areas. A sign, partially faded, welcomed them to the Grand Hotel on one side – on the other, it bid visitors farewell and safe journeys on their travels. They came upon a brick wall, newer than the structural bricks surrounding them, whose color had yet to fade.

“We have one brick wall separating us from that old tunnel system, which incidentally is going to take us to city hall and the CIS headquarters.”

“Why would it take us to the CIS? That unit wasn't founded until the internet was invented,” Judy asked.

“Because, my dear Carrots,” Nick said, “the CIS building used to house the Zootopia Inquirer back before it turned into a trashy tabloid and moved to Sahara Square. Come on, altogether now.”

Nick pushed against the brick wall, looking for assistance. The other animals joined him. Judy at first, followed by Clawhauser, Francine, and the rest. The combined weight and force of two tons of animals' weight bearing down on the solitary brick wall caused it to buckle and they fell through in a cloud of dust and rubble, collapsing into the platform on the other side. 

“We're through!” Bos said, picking himself up and dusting himself off. 

“And off the grid, too,” Nick said. “It's a straight shot from here to civic plaza, come on.”

Several of the animals present had brought their cell phones, illuminating the way with their built-in flashlights. The tunnels here were hardly eerie, despite almost a century of disuse, but instead filled Judy with wonder. The ceiling was high above them, marked with decorative bricks that would have gone unnoticed and unappreciated by the subway-going public. 

“This place is beautiful,” Judy found herself saying.

“It was built by my grandfather,” Lionheart said. Judy turned her head to face him. They were still walking, but Judy could see the former mayor half looking at her and half admiring the tiled artwork along the walls as they passed by. “My father and grandfather practically built this city. I just wanted to do them proud. Look in a place they hadn't – do what they hadn't. I reached too far and too greedily and got burned. Now it's all in danger.”

Judy stopped in her tracks, waiting for the lion to catch up to her before continuing along. She looked up at him, and he at her, before deciding to speak. “Don't worry, Mr. Mayor – we've saved this city before. We'll save it again.”

“That's the attitude I like to hear, Carrots!” Nick called out, way ahead of them. They had been walking for several minutes, almost entirely in a straight line, before Nick stopped and pointed at a platform ahead of them. “This is it.”

Shining their lights at the signage on the platform, it greeted them to the home of the Zootopia Inquirer and wire news services. Ancient advertisements urged them to purchase tickets to the newest movies in town, only twenty-five cents and debuting next year – in 1950. Stars from an age gone by greeted them as they climbed onto the platform and repeated their brick wall performance at another, smaller barrier preventing them from entering further into the station. This wall, more decayed and smaller than the first, gave way almost immediately. A single set of stairs, dark and unwelcoming, sat on the other side. Once again, Nick was the first one through the portal, leading the way.

“Nick, how do you know this place so well?” Judy asked, catching up with him and keeping pace along his heels. 

“Those old advertisements back on the platform there? The old subway system is just full of stuff like that. I used to come in here and scrounge up whatever old artifacts I could so I could sell them. It was pretty lucrative, but I never liked coming down here – plus, the entrance at the Grand Hotel got closed off about five years back, so that killed my prospects of coming back. Still, though, this place brings back memories – a lot of good times I spent down here with Finnick trying to make a buck or two,” Nick said. “Here we are, I think?”

Nick pointed to the top of the next flight of stairs. The exit portal was blocked – not by bricks, this time, but by weak drywall. Officer Grizzoli gently pushed Nick out of his way, rushing forward and breaking through the drywall to land on the other side. The rest of them followed suit, shielding their eyes from the dust cloud kicked up by the breaking wall. Coughing, spitting, shaking, they got up and surveyed their surroundings. They were inside a sub-basement – at least, that's what the bare-walled room with no windows looked like. Surrounded by server racks, Nick and Judy looked up. To their left was a small control room. Inside sat several stunned SST soldiers and a bull wearing a crisp suit. Lionheart and Bos had recognized him instantly, while Nick and Judy made an educated guess: Paul Moo, head of the Zootopian government's IT division and a central part of Mayor Felis's cabinet. His voice greeted them over the intercom system as they saw the SST troopers rush out of the side of the control room. It was more than likely they'd be in the server room shortly.

“If it isn't the city's two most wanted animals and their more annoying friends from the central precinct. I knew you'd make it back into the city eventually, but I didn't expect you to be so brazen as to attack us directly. What do you want here?”

“All we want is information, Mr. Moo,” Judy shouted. “We're not here looking for a fight.”

“Sorry, Ms. Hopps,” she heard him say. “We don't negotiate with terrorists.”

“Terrorists? You're branding us terrorists?” Nick asked, his voice a mix between a high-pitched groan and a shout. “You're the one's smuggling explosives into the city!”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said. “But after what the public sees, they'll have no choice but to accept that their heroes have failed them. You had your chance to join us, Mr. Wilde – you had your chance and you gave it up, freely.”

Mr. Moo stopped talking as several SST troopers rushed into the room, their tasers drawn. It seemed they didn't want to kill them. Not yet, anyway. 

“Arrest them. We'll let them hang with Bogo!” Mr. Moo said, turning his back from them and leaving the control room. 

“Don't let him get away!” McHorn said, shifting into a stance that would allow him to rush the attackers. “We'll deal with these goons. You get Moo and get our information!”

Nick and Judy were frozen into place, unable to move until McHorn began charging the SST troopers. They saw him get hit with several tasers at once, but owing to his size and inertia, he was able to take down several of them during his charge, pinning them under him as he collapsed on the floor. Fangmeyer bounded atop a server rack, tacking another soldier and throwing him across the room.

“Go!” he shouted, getting him by a taser, which only seemed to enrage him, leaping onto another soldier and using him as a shield.

Reluctantly, Nick and Judy left the fight, jumping on top of a server rack and bounding across the room toward the doors, following Moo. Various crashes and chaos lingered as they ran further out of earshot, indicating that the fight was far from over, and they ran through the hallways, tracking down the bull partially responsible for the events unfolding across the city. Running up a flight of stairs, they caught him just before he opened a door to the ground floor. He looked down at them, quite literally, and shifted himself into a position to charge.

“There's no chance in hell I'll let you two undo the work that's taken decades to get here. No way you'll undo this revolution!” he said, rushing down the stairs to meet them.

Nick jumped on top of Judy, flinging her out of the way of danger and she heard a crash. Dust settled over them and in the air, and faintly, Judy's could hear the overhead lamp careening from the force of the animal's impact on the wall, crashing to the floor and shattering below. The emergency exit sign was the only source of light, faint as it was. She heard Nick stand up and scream and she heard a struggle ensue – the unmistakable noise of claws ripping into flesh and pained shouts. Judy shut her eyes, enveloped by darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some notes, for those who might wonder how "convenient" it the Grand Hotel and subway scene might have been for the characters. I actually modeled the Grand Hotel, the Inquirer Building, and the old subway system on the Divine Lorraine Hotel, Inquirer Building, and Inquirer Railroad in Philadelphia, PA, where I lived for many years. I figured it'd be really interesting to include pieces of old, decrepit, but obviously still useful infrastructure as a central point in the story. There's more examples in New York and London, which Zootopia was based off of, to built a rich backstory to the various neighborhoods in Zootopia and their various degrees of boom and bust.
> 
> Once again, I hope you enjoyed reading. Thank you, as always. This chapter will be on FF.net tomorrow instead of today because of my current schedule and the cafe I'm in right now doesn't connect to FF.


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